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Social Care Cap and finance systems to support local government
As part of the Adult Social Care Reform programme announced by the government in September 2021, the Adult Social Care Funding Reforms were introduced.
Included as part of these reforms, is a lifetime cap on the social care costs that adults in England pay towards their care.
This cap, also known as the Care Cap or social care funding cap, was due to be introduced from October 2023; however, following on from the government announcement on the 17th November, the cap has now been delayed by two years.
The cap has now been delayed by two years
During the recent announcement it was stated that the original funds for these reforms will be reallocated to provide new care packages. The additional funding is to support discharge from hospital, along with an increase in funding overall for social care, this makes the largest investment in social care by any government in history.
While the increase in funding is long overdue, it is also very welcomed. The injection of funds will create more opportunities for meaningful investment in resources such as digital tools that can be used to create efficiencies, reduce administration and support workers to carry out their roles regardless of location. With continuing pressure on local authorities to deliver more with less budget and resource, smart solutions need to be implemented to ease the workload burden and pressure.
Supporting local authorities to deliver more with digital tools
Our social care case management solution integrates with other finance systems, streamlining processes and saving time. With a comprehensive portfolio of solutions that put the individual first, our digital tools provide a joined-up approach to quality care delivery while reducing the administration burden for staff. Find out how our digital tools can support you and the people you care for:
Brokerage and Commissioning tools
Our brokerage and commissioning solutions put the individual at the centre by ensuring they have more control of their care by being placed efficiently with a provider that meets all their requirements.
By streamlining processes and tasks within your organisation through a single system, achieve increased quality of care and faster placement.
Provider Portal
Our Provider Portal gives local authority providers an account where they can see all upcoming and suspended payments and automate invoices.
This helps with saving on admin costs and creating more accurate financial reports.
Housing solution
Our housing solution allows families and individuals to be placed quickly into appropriate accommodation that meets their needs, while ensuring all properties are 100% compliant.
Our end-to-end solution means procurement, management, communication and payment of accommodation is all completed within a single platform, giving you full visibility of the available marketplace.
Transport solutions
We support young people with our home to school transport solution, enabling them to get the education they need, while supporting local green initiatives and managing providers.
With a single workflow, processes are streamlined while the flexibility and reporting tools allow you to make informed decisions, helping you to make further significant time and cost saving while providing a quality service
But what about the Care Cap?
We understand local authorities have dedicated time and resources into planning for the Care Cap, and so have we. Our local government product team have been delivering customer focus groups to collaborate on developing the software solutions that meet your needs, now and in the future, and we’re continuing the development of our Care Portal, designed to help create efficiencies across your finance department.
With Financial Assessments taking considerable resource from local authorities, our Care Portal focuses on self-serve capabilities to reduce demand on the local authority. The early Online Self-Assessment feature helps navigate citizens to the most appropriate service, while our social prescribing solution ensures citizens find the right support from community services quickly. Find out more about the Care Portal below.
We’ve also been working closely with Blackpool Council, one of the trailblazer local authorities identified by the government to test out solutions to meet future needs. As a current customer of ours, we’ve been working closely with Blackpool to discuss how our social care case management solutions will support the needs of the Charging Reforms. This has led us to develop two new products for when the Care Cap comes into place:
Care Portal
The Access Care Portal is designed for a citizen to manage and understand the care cap. They will be able to:
- Create a Care Account
- View application progress
- Upload documents and evidence
- Complete assessment forms online
- View payments and create statements
The Access Care Portal links to Mosaic Case Management (CM), preventing duplication of service users in the local authority’s social care case management system.
The Access Care Portal will be available early 2023, allowing local authorities to benefit from the functionality around Online Financial Assessments and early Online Self-Assessment.
Care Account Hub
The Access Care Account Hub is designed for local authorities to manage global values, extract and push data, make adjustments and produce statements.
- Configure values and data around the Daily Living Costs
- Capture transactional data for accruals
- Record manual adjustments
- Produce digital statements
- Share data between the Care Account Hub and Care Portal
- Update fields and push data within the Mosaic CM
You can read more on what the social care cap is on our online blog, otherwise, look out for updates in our customer newsletters and roadmap webinars.