The future doesn’t look entirely rosy for adult social care as our increasingly ageing population, puts pressure on our already meagre budgets. And with a predicted funding gap of £2.3 billion by 2020, it’s difficult to see how local authorities are going to be able to meet the needs of care recipients in the future
It’s clear that local authorities are striving to do better, wanting to deliver a personalised approach to care, while ensuring the services they deliver are monitored and managed effectively. However, with individual budgets to manage and a variety of services from home adaptation through to home or residential care provision, it’s often difficult for local authorities to keep track of what is being spent and to what benefit.
And, it’s not just local authorities who find managing care challenging. A piece of research we conducted last year revealed that the majority of care recipients have little knowledge about the care options available to them, and a concerning number of recipients don’t even know how much their care costs.
To create an adult social care market for the modern world providers must deliver more services and support to an increasingly diverse community. And, local authorities need to offer greater support to all those within the system to allow for greater visibility and control to encourage greater involvement in care experiences to achieve better outcomes. To do this, authorities need to change the way in which they deal with demand and work together with partners, providers and recipients to adopt radically different relationships in order to create a sustainable approach to adult social care.
YPO, the professional buying organisation for the public sector, recognised these challenges facing local authorities and the need for a holistic approach to managing care. With the aim of revolutionising the way in which care is managed it has launched the Managing Care Solutions framework to help provide greater visibility, remove barriers for entry into the market for care providers and to encourage more diversity within the system. The framework offers a way for care commissioners to create an evidence hub that can inform strategic planning, and which helps promote community assets and enable self-care.
The time for change within social care is ripe and this framework offers true innovation to local authorities. Younifi is the sole solution provider on the frameworks and can help adult social care professionals address the daily challenges they face managing the care needs of our elderly population, which have largely until now been constrained by out of date solutions and practices.
