The Minimum Price for Homecare is now available

From the Homecare association. The new calculation for the Minimum Price for Homecare is available. Read more below for details.

We are delighted to share with members our new calculation for the Minimum Price for Homecare of £25.95 per hour in England, effective from April 2023, when the National Living Wage increases to £10.42 per hour.

Our Minimum Price is the amount required to ensure the minimum legally compliant pay rate for careworkers (excluding any enhancements for unsocial hours working), their travel time, mileage, and wage-related on-costs. 

A number of factors have impacted this year’s Minimum Price for Homecare, including: increased inflation rates, the rising cost of fuel and the surge in rent, rates and utilities.

The rate also includes the minimum contribution towards the costs of running a care business which complies with quality requirements at a financially sustainable level.

Our Minimum Price, which is published annually, is widely recognised within the social care and health sectors in all four UK administrations. For the first time this year, we have produced separate reports and prices for each UK nation, reviewing both the assumptions upon which our calculations are based and the data that informs these assumptions.

We have drawn on a range of data from different sources, including public data, data from electronic call monitoring specialists (the Access Group), as well as data from some of our members operating in the state-funded part of the market. Our thanks to everyone who has been involved in contributing to this report.

We call on the government to provide local authorities with the required funding in order to pay careworkers a fair wage. And we call on local authorities to move without delay to agreeing fee rates for 2023-24 with providers, whilst accounting for wage and other inflation of at least 9.7%. 

Our Minimum Price reports for England, Wales and Northern Ireland are now available on our website. Additionally, we will shortly be publishing our new Minimum Price for Scotland upon the upcoming release of the Scottish Budget for 2023-24.

We hope our Minimum Price for Homecare calculations will assist you in your negotiations with local authority and NHS commissioners.

Please contact us if you would like to discuss this report in further detail or for any advice.

Kind regards,

Policy, Practice and Innovation Team.