Contracts for Adult Home Care - Find a freedom of information request

1. Does Lincolnshire County Council either directly, or sub-contract provision of Domiciliary Social Care (Home Care) to adults?

2. If the answer to question 1 is “No”, please provide the name of the Local Authority responsible for providing these services to citizens within your boundaries. There is no need to answer any further questions.

3. What is a reasonable estimate of:

a. The number of annual hours of Domiciliary Care provided\commissioned?

b. The annual expenditure of specific care provision, either directly or paid to contracted providers?

c. The average number of service users provided for within a 12 month period. (Looking specifically for the number at any one time, rather than the number of individuals, which are assumed to be higher due to churn)?

d. The average price paid per hour to external Domiciliary Care Providers for an easy to calculate period, for example 3 months would suffice.

4. If you contract out these services, very briefly describe how are these arranged. For example, a framework with many providers of equal status, a lead provider and tier 2 and 3 model, spot contracting etc. If there are fixed prices applied, please provide these, or an average.

5. With reference to the answer in question 4, please provide the names, and status (tier one, lead, spot etc.) of each provider utilised within the current contract.

6. With reference to question 5, if you keep a record of their Care Quality Commission Inspection rating (Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement, Inadequate), please include this.

7. If these arrangements referred to in question 4, have been established as part of a tender process and formal contract, when did these contracts start?

8. In reference to question 4, if these arrangements have a specific end date, then please provide that date, with explanation as to whether there are unilateral or multilateral extension clauses.

9. If you utilise commissioning strategy that has preferred providers, please give reliable estimates of the utilisation of those providers against their expectation, over the last 6 months. For example: Lead Providers Expectation 65%, Actual 62%, Second Tier Expectation 33%, Actual 15%, Spot purchasing Expectation 5%, Actual 23% etc. If you want to break this down by area or other method, then this is acceptable, but not necessary.

10. Do you anticipate launching a tender process to replace\generate arrangements to subcontract Domiciliary Care provision within the next 2 years, and if so, when?

11. Does your current contract utilise Electronic Call Monitoring in relation to billing and payments activity?

12. If the answer to question 11 is yes:

a. Is this a centralised purchased system, or do providers utilise their own, or a hybrid?

b. Does it apply to all providers, or a specific subset by size, contract status etc.?c. What is the mechanism utilised to determine payments to providers, for example,
commissioned care, a banding system of rounding (with details), a per minute system?
Please briefly explain if there is another system employed.

13. In relation to the answers in question 12, do you anticipate making changes to this approach either in the next tender process or foreseeable future? If so, can you provide a brief reason?

14. In relation to question 12, have you made changes to the approach in the last 24 months, and if so briefly, why?

15. How much do you reliably estimate that DTOC in relation to Social Care, reason “E – Awaiting a Home Care Package”, cost Lincolnshire County Council over the last 12 months.

16. If you have an outstanding list of care hours that are waiting to be started under the arrangements referred to in question 4, then please provider either an average, or month by month detail, of the number of hours outstanding (sometimes referred to as pending). If these are collected and grouped by reason, then please provide the breakdown of reasons.

1. Lincolnshire County Council does either directly or sub-contract provision of Domiciliary Social Care to adults.

2. n/a

3.

a. 1.3m.

b. £24m.

c. 2700.

d. £15.63 Urban & £15.96 Rural.

4. These services are arranged with a lead provider contract based on 12 zones.

5.

6. Care quality commission inspection rating has been included in the furthest left column.

7. All contracts were initially established via a tender with three zones being novated to three other existing lead providers.

8. No further extensions are planned beyond 2020; a new tender is currently underway.

9. Lincolnshire County Council does not use commissioning strategy that has preferred providers.

10. Yes, a new tender will be issued in February 2020

11. Lincolnshire County Council's contract does not utilise Electronic Call Monitoring in relation to billing and payments activity.

12. N/a

13. Yes, Lincolnshire County Council does anticipate making changes to the above process, primarily to support more efficient and accurate reconciliation process.

14. Lincolnshire County Council has not made changes to the approach in the last 24 months.

15. Lincolnshire County Council reliably estimates that nothing was spent on this package.

16. There are 1489.70 care hours waiting to be started.

• New packages 532.19
• Variations 160.45
• Other (POLR, Interim Beds, HBRS, Hospital, Transitional beds) 797.06