Read on for a summary view of the Department’s vision for the care and support workforce, planned developments and the case for change.

The vision for adult care and support
As our population gets older we need to prepare ourselves for the challenges that lie ahead. By working hard to meet those challenges, we can help more people to live a better quality of life, whether they are living with a disability, ill health or entering their later years.

The Government set out its vision of the development of high quality care services in the White Paper, Caring for our future: Reforming care and support, in July 2012. It set out clearly what – with the support of care and support organisations, charities, carers and the public – care and support system we want to achieve. One where:

• The health, wellbeing and rights of individuals are at the heart of our ambition for care and support, with timely and effective interventions to help ensure people’s independence and good quality of life for longer. 
• People are treated with compassion and respect, and are safe from abuse and neglect; everybody has a responsibility to make this happen, to communicate effectively and to highlight any instances of poor care. 
• Everyone has real choice and control over the care and support they need to achieve their goals, to live a fulfilling life, and to be connected with society. 
• We strengthen our communities – their skills, their resources and their networks – to help people to live well, to feel connected and to play as active a role in their communities as they wish. 
• Carers are recognised for their contribution to society as vital partners in care, and are supported to reach their full potential and lead the lives they want. 
• We continue to develop a caring, skilled and much-valued workforce, which delivers quality care and support in partnership with individuals, families and communities.

Everything we want to achieve will depend on the competence, commitment and sensitivity of the care and support workforce. The relationships that are formed with people needing care are essential to delivering good care. 

We need to attract skilled people to deliver high quality care in the future. We need to provide training and information so that the workforce can adapt and work flexibly as technology and ways of working develop. Integrating care and support services with health and others, such as housing and leisure, is a priority. For a truly personalised service, there needs to be a cultural change and people need to work across their own sector boundaries to deliver services that join up around, and meet the needs, of individual people. 

People have the right to choose and control the services they receive, including people who need support at the end of their lives, and the sector as a whole has a role to play in keeping people safe from harm, and in providing information, preventative services and support in order to prevent or delay the onset of serious care needs, rather than only intervening when people reach crisis point. 

Good leaders are central to delivering these changes, and professionals across the care and support sector have a crucial role to play in reforming the whole care and support system. 

The case for change
Within the next 20 years, the number of people aged over 85 is expected to double, and advances in healthcare mean that younger people with disabilities and long-term health conditions are living longer. Longer life expectancy is a good thing, but it does mean that care services will become an important part of more people’s lives. When friends and family need support in life we want to know they will be treated with compassion and respect by people who have the right skills to provide quality care. There is no place for second-rate care in a first world country. We must be confident that those we love will be treated well, and that their dignity will be upheld.

The increase in people needing care means that over time the number of people working in care and support will need to grow. Recruitment and retention of staff remain a challenge, and for many it is not seen as a rewarding or attractive career choice. We want to create and support professional and public pride and trust in the care and support system. The workforce has a role to play in improving the quality of care that’s delivered, and our challenge is to ensure the workforce has the right number of people, with the right skills, knowledge and behaviours, with which to do that.

How will we achieve the vision?
The Government cannot make any of this happen by itself. We are working closely with our partners in the care and support sector to implement a comprehensive package of reforms, which together will help to achieve a system of high quality, sustainable care and support services for the country.

We will continue to work with Skills for Care to attract more people to work in care and support, to ensure there are enough highly skilled people to deliver the volume of care we need in the future. We will boost capacity by doubling the number of apprentices to 100,000 by 2017 and expanding the current care ambassador scheme to promote a positive image of the sector. People will also soon be able to find information about working in care and support, and about available paid and voluntary opportunities, via a new website.

Better skills and training are an important part of raising standards and of improving capability. We have worked with Skills for Care and Skills for Health to produce a Code of Conduct and Minimum Training Standards for adult social care workers and healthcare support workers. These were published on 26 March, and have the dignity and respect of individuals at their heart. They build on the skills, values and attitudes-based standards and qualifications available for the sector. The code of conduct and training standards support the introduction of assured voluntary registration of adult social care workers and healthcare support workers, which will further contribute to improving standards. The Care Quality Commission will also play an important role in ensuring that providers use appropriately trained and qualified workers, as part of enforcing quality standards.

We are also working with Skills for Care to develop a Care and Support Sector Compact. This will set a framework for agreement between employees and employers to improve skills, competencies and behaviours. Personal assistants (PAs) and their employers will, for the first time, receive direct support, learning and training through the Workforce Development Fund. This will help to improve recruitment and retention of staff, and consequently, the quality of care and support they deliver. We will also explore the development of a PA index to facilitate a clear and transparent comparison of PA services available. It will encourage PAs to improve their skills and improve understanding of the roles that PAs can play.

Perhaps more than anything else, transforming the care and support sector needs strong, determined leaders at every level, from strategic leaders to practice leaders. It needs to develop new talent and the leaders of tomorrow, capable of inspiring the workforce  to deliver high-quality care. We are working with the National Skills Academy Social Care (NSASC) to set up a new Leadership Forum in 2013 to lead this transformation. Its first meeting will take place shortly. One important area of focus for the forum will be frontline practice managers who have a role in influencing the quality of people’s experiences of care and support. Registered managers also have a vital frontline responsibility and it is imperative that they are supported and don’t feel isolated. In recognition of this, the Department of Health recently worked closely with the NSASC to launch a programme of support for registered managers. 

The Department is continuing to work with the NSASC to implement strong collaborative leadership through the Social Care Leadership Qualities Framework. This work includes self-assessments and coaching, and will contribute to services becoming better organised and joined up around the needs of individuals.

We will also continue to work with the Department for Education, The College of Social Work and others to improve education for social workers and to promote continuing professional development. This work will include improving the standard of the qualifying education for social workers. Two Chief Social Workers will be appointed in 2013. These are new roles, with one focusing on children and family social work and the other on adult social work. They will work together to influence social work reform, to support and challenge the profession to ensure that children and adults in vulnerable situations get the best possible help from social workers, and to provide expert advice to ministers on a range of social work issues. The Chief Social Worker for Adult Services will focus on improving the skills of the social care workforce, and on developing a clear definition of social work within adult services. They will also help to create a consistent understanding of and purpose for the profession. Within local authorities, Principal Social Workers will ensure that professional views, knowledge and frontline experience are included in strategic discussion and decision making. This will be supported by relevant professional development and caseloads, and by making strategic decisions on how social workers are deployed.

• Share:
• Tweet

The Department will consider the Committee’s recommendations carefully and respond in due course.

For more information, please visit the Parliament website.

• Share:
• Tweet

Watch Norman’s film here.

• Share:
• Tweet

The Government will then consider the Committee’s report and respond formally in due course.

Read more about the reform of care and support law.

Read more about the Draft Care and Support Bill on the Parliament website, including transcripts of the evidence given to the joint committee.

• Share:
• Tweet

People will be encouraged to use these new provider profiles on the NHS Choices website to help narrow down their search for good quality, registered care that meets their personal needs and preferences. The profiles are a major step in enabling people to make more informed and confident choices about care for themselves or family members.

Registered care providers will be able to use their profiles to tell people what makes their service special and how their support can improve someone’s quality of life. 

Providers can use this search to find their existing profile on the website. The profiles are extremely basic at the moment, but providers have an excellent opportunity to add, for free, a range of information to promote their care service on one of the most visited websites in the UK. NHS Choices currently receives over 19 million visits per month. 
 
If you are a care provider, you can use your profile to:

• give people a taste of what your organisation offers and of what makes you special.
• show how your support could enhance someone’s life, and provide details about the services you offer – for example, whether you provide specialised care for dementia sufferers if you provide residential care, or whether you provide live-in care services if you provide homecare. 
• tell people about the quality of care you provide using new Transparency and Quality Compact measures agreed by care and support providers – for example how you perform on pressure care management in a residential care home or scheduled visits taking place on time for a homecare agency.
• show people how proud you are of your staff and why.
• provide useful practical details on things such as visiting times and menu options.

Take a look at what St Cecilia’s care home in Scarborough, Choice Support Aylesbury, the Good Care Group in London and the Oxfordshire Shared Lives Scheme have already done with their profiles.

From April, the provider profiles will also include comments by users of services, their families and carers, which have either been left on NHS Choices or other feedback websites which meet strict moderation criteria. This genuine customer feedback will further help people make decisions about their care.

What do care providers need to do now?
The Department of Health is finalising the new care and support provider area of the NHS Choices website and accompanying guidance now. From 7 March  the website will be ready for you to add your organisation’s details.

Please look out for further information that will follow in early March, which will include resources and advice to help you complete and make the most of your online profile. You can however get ready for the 7 March now by registering your organisation:

• Visit the ‘Your pages’ area of the NHS Choices website, which has further details about the profiles and about how you can easily request editing access.
• Or, email NHS Choices direct to request editing access: provide your full name, email address, job title, contact number and postcode for each care organisation profile you would like to manage.
• Important note: if your care service is part of a larger organisation or operates from several sites, please contact your head office before requesting editing access.

Further information:
Transparency and Quality Compact measures
The Government has worked with care and support providers and their representatives to develop a set of Transparency and Quality Compact measures. Providers can choose to complete and add these to their profiles to tell people about more detailed aspects of the quality of their care. The list of quality measures is:

• staff stability
• staff training
• complaints
• falls (residential and nursing care only)
• pressure care (residential and nursing care only)
• medication management (residential and nursing care only)
• scheduled visits taking place (homecare only)
• timeliness of visits (homecare only)

So far, quality measures have been agreed for residential and homecare services for older people. We now want to work with providers to develop similar measures for other types of care, such as Shared Lives or supported living.

Quality ratings
People have told us that they want to be able to compare care providers quickly, as well as having the option to find out more. The Secretary of State has asked the Nuffield Trust to carry out a review to consider whether aggregate ratings of provider performance should be used in health, and care and support, and if so how best this might be done.  The Nuffield Trust is expected to report back to the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, by the end of March 2013. If quality ratings are developed, this information would also be included on each provider’s profile alongside more detailed information about the care and support they offer.

Useful documents for care providers:
Care provider user guide
Online provider profiles FAQs
Transparency and quality compact measures – provider guide

• Share:
• Tweet

Previously referred to as ‘provider quality profiles’, this information will give care providers an excellent opportunity to promote their care services, for free, on one of the most visited websites in the UK. NHS Choices currently receives over 19 million visits per month.

The launch of the profiles follows the Department of Health announcing, last July, that detailed information about every care provider registered with the Care Quality Commission would be listed on the NHS Choices website.

Every one of these providers already has its own space on NHS Choices – use this search to find your existing profile on the site. The information is extremely basic at the moment, but you can add, at no cost, a range of information to:

• give people a taster of what your organisation offers and of what makes you special
• show how your support could enhance someone’s life, and provide details about the services you offer – for example, whether you provide specialised care for dementia sufferers if you’re a residential care home, or whether you provide live-in care services if you’re a home-care provider
• show people how proud you are of your staff and why
• provide useful practical details on things such as visiting times and menu options.

Take a look at what St Cecilia’s care home in Scarborough has already done with its profile.

From April, the profiles will also include comments from users of services, their families and carers, which have either been left on NHS Choices or other feedback websites which meet strict moderation criteria. This will provide genuine customer feedback that can help people make decisions about their care.

What do care providers need to do now?

Please look out for further information that will follow later this month, which will include resources and advice to help you complete and make the most of your online profile.

We are finalising the provider profiles area of the NHS Choices website and accompanying guidance for providers now, and from 7 March the website will be ready for you to add your details. However if you would like to get started on your profile now you can:

• visit the ‘Your pages’ area of the NHS Choices website, which sets out further details about the profiles and of how you can easily request editing access
• or, email NHS Choices direct to request editing access: provide your full name, email address, job title, contact number and postcode for each care organisation profile you would like to manage.
• Important note: if your care service is part of a larger organisation or operates from several sites, please contact your head office in the first instance, before requesting editing access.

For further information about the online profiles and about why the Department of Health is making these provider profiles freely available to care providers and the public, please click here.

• Share:
• Tweet

As well as a comparison between the current system and the future system, with its £75,000 cap and extended means test, the graph shows the benefit of the cap, and of the cap alongside the new means test.

The attached flow chart shows the user journey through the reformed care and support funding system.

Find out more about how the care and support funding reforms will work.

• Share:
• Tweet

The new measures are based on the recommendations made in 2011 by the Dilnot Commission, an independent panel set up to look at the fairest and most sustainable way to fund care and support in England.

Find out more about the new funding reforms.

Find out more about how the care and support funding reforms will work.

• Read the policy statement on care and support funding reform.

• Share:
• Tweet

He has an income of £172 per week, made up of the state pension plus benefits. His flat is worth £80,000.

In the current system, Fred pays £30,000 for all of his fees since he has assets of more than the capital limit.

In the reformed system, the local authority helps Fred with his costs, contributing £11,000. Fred pays £19,000 to the care home, less than the current system because of the increase in the upper capital limit to £123,000.

Fred therefore benefits from the increased capital limit and the assurance that he won’t have unlimited care costs.

Find out more about how the care and support funding reforms will work.

• Share:
• Tweet

She has income of £300 per week. Her home is worth £210,000.

In the current system, Sissy spends £167,000 on care with the prospect of losing all her wealth apart from the last £17,500.

In the reformed system, Sissy pays £75,000 towards her care.  She also contributes £12,100 per year to her general living costs while she is in the care home, like she had to pay for her food and bills in her own home.

The local authority pays £38,600 for her care fees once she has reached the cap.

She takes out a deferred payment with her local authority to pay the £75,000 for her care. Therefore, she does not have to sell her home to pay for her care during her lifetime.

Sissy has benefited from the cap covering home and residential care, and from deferred payment agreements.

Find out more about how the care and support funding reforms will work.

• Share:
• Tweet