The Challenge
- Understanding whether uplift requests are reasonable.
- Getting providers and social workers on board with using CareCubed.
The Solution
- Embedding CareCubed into processes.
- Taking time to meet with providers and
train staff.
Results
- Structured processes embedded, assisting the Council now and ongoing.
- Cost avoidance achieved.
Leicestershire County Council went from intermittently using CareCubed’s predecessor, the Care Funding Calculator, to building CareCubed firmly into its processes over a five-year period. Now that CareCubed is firmly embedded into its processes for working age adult placements it is starting to really see the benefits. Cost avoidance has occurred, but the biggest advantage has been giving the council an independent starting point for negotiations.
“It is not unusual to have been paying £2,500 a week and for a provider to say they had done some cost analysis and the fee should be £4,000 a week. When we weren’t using CareCubed we had a problem because we’d say let’s look at your costs and that would take time and resource, leading to delays and didn’t offer the level playing field that CareCubed brings”
Dave Pruden
Lead Commissioner for Older Adults
In April 2024 Leicestershire CC decided it would not apply inflation increases to any high-cost working age adult placement without a CareCubed calculation as part of its person-centered review process. It decided that if CareCubed found the fee already being paid was above the CareCubed midpoint for the forthcoming year then it would not apply an increase.
Dave Pruden, Lead Commissioner for Older Adults, explains: “Previously every working age adult placement would have had an annual increase and that would put pressure on our budgets. Last year we said that for every residential working age adult that has a fee over £1,500 we weren’t going to put an automatic increase in, we would do a review, and the inflationary increase would be dealt with in the context of that review,” he says.
“There is now an escalation process which is followed if CareCubed highlights that the provider is already being paid substantially high fees, which includes considering alternative homes for the resident.”
The escalation process is well structured with negotiation milestones, which means that if a provider says they are not being paid enough, there is now a staged clarification process which then allows both parties to collaborate.
