DoH 'needs contingency plans for care services'

14 Sep 11
The government should have a fallback plan for adult social care services in case another large provider like Southern Cross fails, the National Audit Office said today

By Mark Smulian | 15 September 2011

The government should have a fallback plan for adult social care services in case another large provider like Southern Cross fails, the National Audit Office said today.

Residents in care home


The auditors found that the Department of Health ‘did not have any existing arrangements or strategy for dealing with the potential failure of a provider of this size’. They added: ‘Unlike some other regulated sectors, there are no other pre-determined continuity of supply arrangements.’

No mechanism existed for monitoring or intervening in social care markets that cross local authority boundaries, the NAO report noted.

To prevent any repetition of the uncertainty caused to residents by the collapse of Southern Cross, the department should ‘determine where market oversight of regional and national issues is not sufficient, and whether any more central oversight is necessary’.

Southern Cross’s plight had demonstrated that the government ‘needed further arrangements at a national and local level to protect users from provider failure’, the report said.

This should be risk-based and reflect whether a provider was dominant in one area or nationally, in which case ‘there may be a need for regulatory action over and above relying on competition law’.

The NAO found that ownership concentration was increasing. Southern Cross had had an 8.7% market share and three other providers between them controlled 11.4% of the social care market.

Public Accounts Committee chair Margaret Hodge said: ‘The failure of Southern Cross is a stark example of why the government needs plans in place for when large providers of social care get into difficulties.’

The report also looked at the trend towards personalised care budgets in the sector.

Some £23bn is spent annually on social care in the UK, of which £1.5bn is devoted to personal care budgets for 340,000 people out of 1 million eligible.

It said most people with personal budgets welcomed them, and 36% of councils had cited them as a means to achieve better value for money.

Responding to the NAO’s conclusions, care services minister Paul Burstow said the government was considering whether wider market oversight for social care was needed.

Spacer

CIPFA logo

PF Jobsite logo

Did you enjoy this article?

AddToAny

Top