Sheffield care home fees rise to help keep companies going and pay staff better

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced in his Autumn Statement last month that the national living wage will increase by 9.8 per cent next year to £11.44 an hour for workers aged 21 and over.

A meeting of the council’s adult health and social care policy committee yesterday (December 13) agreed to increase the fees that it pays to care providers from the financial year 2024/25.

Contractors who provide a range of services will get a fee increase of 9.33 per cent. These include:

• Home care
• Extra care
• Mental health support and independence framework providers
• Enhanced supported living
• Supported living (covering standard and discounted rates)
• Activities outside the home – including day activities for adults with a disability and dementia.
• Overnight short breaks
• Shared lives.

The council will also increase the rates it pays care homes by 11.11 per cent, taking the standard rate paid to £700 per week. This is an above-inflation rise following a fair cost of care exercise between the council and care home companies.

A report to the committee said that the additional cost of £840,000 to the council, based on 60,000 placement weeks per year, will be offset by the use of a fund earmarked to cover those costs.

The report added: “It is our intention to work with providers to move towards the fair cost of care and for the care workforce achieving the foundation living wage, whilst continuing to ensure that we maintain a sufficient and stable market, offering choice, quality, and value for money and efficiency in our residential provision by delivering the Transforming Care Homes programme.”

The policy, agreed by the committee in February, brings in higher standards of care quality for care homes that the council uses.

More than a quarter of care homes consulted by the council ahead of the proposals said they had to take exceptional steps to survive over the past 12 to 18 months, faced with spiralling costs.

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Many said that low fee rates mean they could not pay above the nationalminimum wage to staff or made them delay improvement work to their buildings. This had a knock-on effect on keeping staff, forcing homes to use more agency workers.

Coun Ruth Milsom said: “I know I’m not the only councillor who’s a bit nervous about the long-term security of care providers and security for care workers.”

She stressed the need for “full sustainability and fair pay for everybody” and “that is really impossible to achieve without long-term investment from the government”.

Councils have to undertake their budgeting processes without knowing how much they will receive from the government, she pointed out, saying that the financial settlement will not be announced until next week.

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Coun Milsom added that some care providers are operating “quite down to the wire financially” which is why it is important to move closer to closing the fees gap.

“In the end, high-quality care doesn’t come without high-quality pay packets,” she said.

Committee chair Coun Angela Argenzio commented: “I completely share that.” She said that a lot of work has gone into making the decisions involved on the part of committee members and council officers.

Coun Argenzio added: “We will continue to work to work to a condition where we have stability in the main and we can support our providers and pay people a fair wage and deliver quality services.”