Councils and Local Authorities Not Paying A Fair Price For Care

Tuesday, 25th October 2016

Nine out of ten UK councils and local authorities are failing to pay realistic prices to support older and disabled adults in their own homes according key bodies across the care sector.

The UK Home Care Association (UKHCA) calculated the minimum price councils should be paying was £16.70 per hour for adult care provision but the average was over £2 less than this amount.

Councils and local authorities have stated that they have been given little choice to pay the lower rate because of the financial squeeze they have been put under by the government. However, the UKHCA have voiced their concerns that this situation was threatening the future of the care industry. It warns that care agencies were struggling to recruit and maintain a stable staff workforce that were appropriately trained and experienced to undertake this type of work safely.

The UK home care market looks after nearly 900,000 people providing help with daily tasks including washing, dressing, meal preparation, help with medication etc. About 80% of these care packages are funded by local councils/authorities. The UKHCA asked all 208 councils about the fees they paid with 186 providing data under the Freedom of Information Act.

It bases its £16.70 minimum price on the cost of paying care workers the national minimum wage and the running costs for the care agency with a profit margin of 50pence per hour. However the average paid by councils was £14.58 per hour with a small number of councils paying under £12.

This statement also comes on the heels of the Care Quality Commission’s report ‘The State of Health Care and Adult Social Care in England’ published earlier this month where they discussed the industry being at ‘tipping point’ with severe financial cuts leading to more pressure on hospitals and a concern around deteriorating performance across a number of care providers.