Social care providers face £6bn in extra costs

Providers of adult social care services may face more than £6.6 billion in extra costs due to the coronavirus crisis by the end of September this year.

The Local Government Association (LGA) and Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS), working with the Care Providers Alliance, commissioned LaingBuisson to produce fresh analysis to help give the Department of Health and Social Care a detailed estimate of the potential future costs facing this vital sector.

The figures indicate that maintaining safe staffing levels and providing personal protective equipment (PPE) are the biggest drivers of these extra financial pressures, as well as the need for enhanced cleaning of care homes and other care settings. It means that councils and social care providers are struggling to meet these escalating costs, while seeing their income levels fall.

The joint analysis suggests that providers face potential increased staffing costs of £1.018 billion, due mainly to having to maintain safe staffing levels while staff are ill or self-isolating, while PPE costs will likely total £4.179 billion if detailed guidance is followed on its use and if some current costs of PPE continue. Additionally, there are a further estimated £700 million of extra costs around enhanced cleaning of care homes and increased overheads. In total, these amount to £6.606 billion in potential extra costs.

Ian Hudspeth, chairman of the LGA’s Community Wellbeing Board, said: “These figures highlight the sheer scale of the financial pressures facing councils and their social care provider partners as we look to get through the next few weeks and months of this coronavirus crisis. People who use and work in social care are at the heart of our concerns about this. This analysis needs to spark a fundamental debate about the ability of the care market to respond to the pandemic and what more can be done to support it. Providers are doing an incredible job in the most testing of circumstances.

“Councils are working closely with providers to support their financial resilience. Of the £3.2 billion of emergency funding given to councils to deal with the immediate impact of the pandemic across all local services, 40 per cent has been allocated to adult social care. We look forward to working with government on finding a solution to the immediate pressures facing the sector, including a significant further injection of funding, as well as agreeing a long-term, sustainable funding settlement for social care once this current crisis is over.”