Call for national social care tariffs

Campaigners are calling for national tariffs for social care to be introduced to set the price of social care packages. This is to end the current unfair squeeze on providers, argues the Independent Care Group (ICG).

The ICG says setting such national tariffs would protect care providers and give them a fairer price to deliver services.

The call comes after the President of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS), Sarah McClinton, admitted that ‘councils have squeezed down prices paid to providers over many years.’

ICG Chair, Mike Padgham, said, ‘It is good to see the president of ADASS give this honest account of what is happening to care providers. The price paid by local authorities to care providers has been squeezed and squeezed for many years to the point where it no longer reflects anything like the true cost of looking after people in their own home or supported living or in care and nursing homes.

‘The end result is that providers are being pushed out of the market, especially with the added pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic, dire staff shortages and spiralling costs.’

Mike Padgham said that he understood the pressures on local authorities who had themselves been chronically under-funded by successive governments, adding, ‘The current funding regime is brutal and unfair, with Government cuts hitting local authorities hard and pitting them in a fight with providers to buy care at the lowest possible price.

‘This is the worst possible scenario in which to provide care for our oldest and most vulnerable people. Low fees, combined with the COVID-19 pandemic, the current staffing crisis and rocketing costs are combining to push providers to the edge of survival.’

ICG is calling for national tariffs to be set which all care commissioners had to adhere to when buying care packages.