Cornwall Partners in Care News

Cornwall Partners in Care hold weekly briefings with Cornwall Council and Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation trust. These meetings involve Kate Alcock (Head of Strategic Commissioning – Older People, Physical Disability and Carers), Mary Anson (CPIC Chair), representatives from the CPIC Committee, and occasionally colleagues from the Council and Health.

Daily update - 1st April 2022

The meeting today included Kate Alcock, along with Mary, Christine, Phil, and Richard from CPIC. We discussed; 

• Kate gave an update on the fee uplifts for the providers. As of Friday, Kate was waiting for final sign off from Health on the letter to be issued to Providers, but we are expecting;
  Care Home Providers that have signed the contract will receive an uplift of 4.2%. The Care Home contract stipulates that any uplift would only apply the uplift to "confirmed fees", however as the Council do not have the data to differentiate at this time, they will be uplifting all beds by 4.2%.
  For all Home Care Providers, the increase is likely to be 4.2% plus an uplift to ensure that providers can pay £10.50 per hour minimum (not sure if/how this will be written into any contract).

  Home Care Providers on DPS: £20.92 to £22.86 (overall increase of 9.28% or £1.94)
  Supportive Lifestyle Providers: £16.48 to £18.31 (overall increase of 9.78% or £1.63)
  Supportive Lifestyle Providers Nights: £12.33 to £13.54 (overall increase of 9.78% or £1.21)
  1:1: £18.35 to £19.99 (overall increase of 8.98% or £1.64)

  For Home Care Providers the above uplifts will apply to all fees on DPS at or below the max ceiling rate. Rates above the ceiling rate will not receive an uplift.

• We raised the issue that the timing of any announcement was far too late to be of any use. Kate did explain that the Council could not start any activity before the November announcement of the Foundation Living Wage as the contracts are tied to this wage rate. It was pointed out that it has still taken 5 months for anything to be agreed and announced and that providers have to let staff know with 28 days’ notice of any wage changes to meet the regulations and CMA (Competitive Markets Authority), and to ensure individuals can notify the benefits system, where appropriate.

• A discussion took place around the difficulties in staffing with so many staff off.

  • Testing no longer required

  • So many other sectors encouraged to work with covid

  • Everywhere is now open again but the care home guidance has not been relaxed and there is no financial support for providers, yet they are the one suffering.

• There was also a discussion around staffing who need to stay with clients whilst waiting for ambulances as with ambulance wait times so long, this is impacting on home care providers’ ability to deliver care to the rest of their clients. Providers feel as though they are free staffing for SWAST. SWAST and 111 do not seem to understand the situation, as more and more responsibility is being delegated down to providers as everyone is so busy. No-one seems to understand that providers are busy too!

• It was suggested that Kate and Dylan Champion could attend future CPIC forums as a standing invite for an update to the sector at the start of each forum. Kate agreed to attend the next forums to talk about the Elective Recovery Fund, commissioning strategies, and hopefully the uplift details.

The next scheduled meeting will take place on the 1st April 2022.