Coventry’s key commissioning priorities
Coventry’s Market Position Statement focuses on how we will meet the following key commissioning priorities to further strengthen the local market:
1. Addressing identified gaps:
We are keen to work together with the market to address gaps in provision to develop high quality, cost effective and sustainable local support. In reviewing requests for support, feedback from individuals, carers, practitioners and through the completion of our Market Sustainability and Improvement Capacity Planning exercise, we note challenges in sourcing local support for individuals with:
- High-level or complex care needs, including for younger adults with a learning disability and / or autism and individuals of all ages with behaviours that challenge.
- Supported living provision for individuals with a learning disability, autism, or mental health requirements including transitions. This includes the requirement for single occupancy, affordable supported living placements in the community.
- Accommodation for individuals of all ages who require support and whose requirements sit outside of traditional supported living or housing with care models.
- Increasing the range, choice and availability of respite and carers breaks.
- We are also keen to develop our offer further in respect of:
- Community alternatives to regulated support
- Housing with Care
- Third sector and additional community support
- Home support
By meeting these demands we aim to reduce the need for out of city placements for reasons relating to a lack of available in city provision and return people to Coventry, should they wish to do so. We also aim to increase choice available to individuals, equity and access of provision across the city, and further diversify the local market. We are seeking opportunities to develop purpose-built care homes better able to meet modern expectations. We must however seek to meet these gaps within the existing financial envelope and resources.
Adults Commissioning continue to work with our social work teams to capture gaps in service needs to inform future commissioning intentions.
2. Improving quality of care provision:
We want everyone to receive care and support that is of the highest quality prioritising safety, outcomes, dignity, choice and control, and wellbeing. Our quality requirements relate to both the delivery of care and the quality of accommodation, and will be achieved through clear standards, targets, and support to our providers to deliver quality care with high service user satisfaction and respect for individuals. As a baseline we expect all providers to achieve a minimum ‘Good’ CQC rating or be proactively making progress towards achieving this. We will look for opportunities for new developments, working to ensure individuals in accommodation-based provision live in stimulating, positive environments which facilitate wellbeing and meet people’s expectations. We expect services to ensure they are accessible, catering to the diverse cultural needs of the city. Whilst the Council will strive to work in close partnership with providers, we will continue to challenge poor quality and maintain a “no tolerance” approach to quality that falls below acceptable standards, utilising contractual levers, including potential termination of contracts, as required to ensure this. The Commissioning Team have worked to support the care market to deliver quality services through support with recruitment and retention of staff, assistance to pursue digital technologies, business development support and delivering training at the request of providers. We will continue to develop this support in line with market feedback and requirements.
3. Developing alternative options to regulated services:
We aim to increase alternatives to regulated services. We recognise regulated services may not be suited to everyone’s needs or preferences and the development of non-regulated support options is necessary to offer real choice to individuals, enable outcomes to be met through more options that are relevant to how people want to live and do so in a cost-effective manner. We have commenced this work through the development of our ‘Community Alternatives’ programme, aiming to strengthen awareness and reach of community, voluntary and third sector organisations to meet the needs of people within their local area. This includes improving support for informal and family carers through increased options for accessing a range of support, providing community-based alternatives to ‘traditional’ day opportunity models, enabling access to mainstream services, and widening general support networks available to individuals. Our use of the Accelerating Reform Fund also supports the development of these alternatives, for example, the development of an alternative carers’ breaks offer, and a carers online assessment and support tool.