The Challenge
- Using CareCubed for accommodation-based support for working-age clients when required.
- Rolling out CareCubed to enhance existing tools and ways of working.
The Solution
- East Sussex had previously successfully used iESE’s Care Funding Calculator
- CareCubed is the only national benchmarking tool for care pricing that is widely used by providers and commissioners.
- CareCubed is backed by not-for-profit community interest company iESE and has a mission to help create a fair and sustainable market for providers and commissioners.
- iESE’s public service ethos puts customer success and support at the heart of the organisation.
Results
- Continued significant cashable savings and efficiencies made through building on existing practices and enhancing the toolkit available to commissioners and brokers.
- The successful implementation of CareCubed for working-age adults means wider is adoption is planned in other areas of commissioning at East Sussex.
East Sussex County Council (ESCC) was a long-standing user of the Care Funding Calculator (CFC) which was discontinued many years ago and replaced with the digital platform CareCubed. The principles of the tool were already well embedded into processes and the ethos of CareCubed remains the same – to bring transparency to discussions between care commissioners and providers by generating benchmark placement pricing which gives critical evidence as a starting point for negotiations. CareCubed uses model data from multiple regularly updated sources, including
considering local variations in costs such as staffing and accommodation.
Sophie Permain, Head of Commissioning for Older People’s Residential and Nursing at East Sussex County Council and the previous Supply and Development Manager for Market Resilience and Engagement at the organisation, said: “We had good experience of CareCubed’s predecessor and strong knowledge of the system’s principles in our team. In the last couple of years, it became obvious that we needed a new solution, with
the very best and up-to-date data to support our decision-making and discussions with providers. We decided to move to CareCubed as it is used nationwide and offers lots of new functionality in a digital tool.”
In the first year, East Sussex used CareCubed for accommodation-based support for working-age adults for new placements and reviews. While not all cases were put through CareCubed, high-cost placements were regularly put through the tool, as well as cases where the provider believed the placement was not sustainable. This has led to immediate significant benefits for the authority.
“It was agreed in East Sussex that it would be a tool to be used by specialist brokerage. Because of all the years of experience with the CFC, but also due to a very well embedded team and culture where we understand the market, costs and
business negotiation and so on, the introduction of the tool was quite seamless. CareCubed has been really helpful in supporting the brokerage role, because it supports the skills and experience in our team and because it uses the latest independent market data, increasing our chances of success.””
Laureta Lake
Brokerage Manager Specialist Services
East Sussex County Council
