Overview of the Adult Social Care Strategy
Our Vision for Adult Social Care in Central Bedfordshire is:
To help people live their own lives and play a full and active part in the life of the community.
The Adult Social Care Strategy will cover how we plan to do that, our key priorities, how we intend to deliver these and what difference this will make for our residents.
Adult social care covers a wide range of activities to help people who are older or living with a disability or physical or mental illness, live independently and stay well and safe. It can include supporting people in their own homes, day centres, nursing and residential homes. It can also involve providing aids and adaptations, supporting unpaid carers, providing information and advice as well as supporting people to socialise or engage in work or training.
Challenges
We are facing a number of challenges in Adult Social Care over the next 5 years which is why having a strategy is so important for us. These challenges include:
An ageing and increasing population
In Central Bedfordshire, we have a population of around 294,000, which is expected to increase by 22.6% by 2031. About 18% of the population are aged 65 years and above, which is an increase of 32.6% in this age group over the last 10 years. Between 2020 and 2035 this is expected to increase by 40%.
The future increase in population and demand means that in the coming years we need to make best use of the available budget to meet the needs of those who are most vulnerable.
Less money more demand
The budget for Adult Social Care in Central Bedfordshire accounts for nearly 37% of the Council’s budget.
The money provided by central government to fund Adult Social Care has decreased over the last few years. In addition, the current cost of living crisis, rising inflation and increased demand for services is making it even more difficult to manage the funding pressures we are facing, which is placing more strain on the Council, care providers, and partners in the voluntary and community sector.
Fewer workers
The Adult Social Care workforce includes employees working directly for the Council, employees working for care providers paid by us, people employed via a direct payment i.e. personal assistants and care staff employed as part of any joint arrangements with health.
We are struggling to fill vacancies in our social care workforce which is a problem nationally. Along with other councils, we have high levels of vacancies and staff turnover rates in the care market. This could be because there are less stressful jobs available which offer the same, or better, rates of pay, which impacts on our ability to recruit and keep staff.
Lower quality of care and less care homes
According to the Care Quality Commission the overall quality in care provided in Central Bedfordshire has weakened in the last 2 years.
We believe that much of this is due to the COVID pandemic with lots of staff and some managers leaving their roles during this time due to the high level of pressure they were under.
The financial challenges mentioned above have led to some care providers going out of business or choosing to close as they are no longer profitable.