MPS: Summary of market opportunities

The intention is to commission supported living and carer households through a framework agreement. A review of future commissioning is beginning and the market will be engaged during 2020 on developing future arrangements.

Commissioners will continue administering ‘interim supported living’ shared-hour agreements until any replacement contract arrangement is in place.

We need to see expansion and innovation in replacement care, especially to meet the needs of carers who are supporting a cared-for person with complex needs. For further information, refer to the Replacement Care Commissioning Statement.

For example, a person with complex mental health needs, and on the autistic spectrum, although living in supported accommodation away from home and theoretically independent, had frequent escalations of need and the parent/carers were the only source of support acceptable to that person.

Many carers do not seek assessment and support and many are aware that for formal social care services the person(s) they care for would be regarded as self-funding. So, the assessment of need presented here may be an understatement and may suggest a market opportunity for provider to offer services more widely to carers.

For further information, refer to the Replacement Care Commissioning Statement.

The range and availability of services to support carers is varied across Devon. Providers may wish to think about the services they can offer to carers to extend their portfolio and strengthen commercial sustainability. For example, where staff are employed on shifts, it might be possible to deploy those staff during less bust times to offer affordable carer support. Or personal assistants (PAs) may see and opportunity to develop their offer.

We are looking to innovation in this area beyond traditional service approaches and to making the delivery of replacement care more personalised and sensitive to individual needs. For example:

• carers who have not had a break because the type of care they provide is not easily replaced. For example, parents who provide emotional and some physical care to an adult with complex mental health needs, learning disabilities and or Autistic Spectrum conditions when there are escalations or crises, which occur without warning, frequently and at random intervals.
• host family provision might be further developed for daytime or short stay services, so that families can develop longer term relationships and plan ahead.

Passports: in 2019-2020 we will develop a Carers’ Passport Scheme. The scheme will facilitate carer contacts with health and social are professionals but we will be looking to include discounts and privilege access to community facilities, services and resources – and we will be looking for providers to be partners in delivering this.

Breaks: we wish to see further development of non-social care providers, for example bed and breakfast establishments, small hotels and holiday resorts, working alone or with social care provider where this is necessary, to enable carers to take breaks either by

• accommodating the carers and the cared-for person(s) enabling access to local care provision as needed; and/or

• accommodating the cared-for person(s) who may be provided if necessary with visiting social care; providing low cost accommodation for carers.

We want to know more about the quality and safety of the social care personal assistant (PA) market, made more difficult as it does not currently fall under CQC regulation.

Encouraging more PAs to join the PA register will give us a better sense of the quality of the PA market, albeit on a self-reported basis. PAs who join the register will have greater access to purchasers and should enhance their business.