We note from the following link Market Sustainability and Improvement Fund (MSIF) 2023 to 2024 that the provisional average fee for Council with Adult Social Services Responsibilities (CASSR), with regards to Devon County Council (DCC) is:
External providers of care homes without nursing for clients aged 65+ in 2023-24 = £1025.25 per week.
External providers of care homes with nursing for clients aged 65+ in 2023-24 = £1497.66 per week.
The difference between care homes with and without nursing is £400, which is higher than would usually be expected. One potential reason may be that the council’s return did not follow Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) guidance, which was to exclude NHS Funded Nursing Care, 3rd party top-ups, and any other source of funding other than the Council.
Please either:
a) Confirm that the above figures correctly follow the DHSC guidance and do not include NHS Funded Nursing Care, 3rd party top-ups, or any other source of funding other than the Council
or, if not,
b) Provide revised figures for the average fee rates paid to external providers, from April 2023 to date, which do not include NHS Funded Nursing Care, 3rd party top-ups, or any other source of funding other than the Council.
The figures quoted above are not accurate for Devons submission and the correct rates can be seen in the table below:
| Office for National Statistics (ONS) Code | Local Authority | Average fee rate per week for external providers of care homes without nursing for clients aged 65+ in 2022-23 |
Provisional average fee rate per week for external providers of care homes without nursing for clients aged 65+ in 2023-24 |
Average fee rate per week for external providers of care homes with nursing for clients aged 65+ in 2022-23 |
Provisional average fee rate per week for external providers of care homes with nursing for clients aged 65+ in 2023-24 |
| E10000008 | Devon | £903 | £1,025 | £1,134 | £1,278 |
The figures we have stated are those returned to DHSC from the MSIF exercise, this was a mandated requirement as part of the grant terms and conditions. The process to derive at those figures was prescribed to us and outside of DCC’s control. We answered the costs as per the levels of data we had returned through the exercise and this was scrutinised to align with the expected asks from DHSC.