Lifeways' six asks of the Government

Lifeways has written to the Government with six 'asks' to better support the nation's most vulnerable people.

In a letter to new Health Secretary Wes Streeting, Andrea Kinkade, the CEO of Lifeways Group - the UK’s largest supported living provider - outlines six priorities which, we believe, would enable Lifeways and the wider social care sector to improve the support offered.

Here's an extract from Andrea's letter:

Lifeways currently supports around 4,000 people in 1,500 services across England, Scotland, and Wales, with needs including learning disabilities, autism, and mental ill-health. We specialise in supporting people with complex needs.

I recognise fully the considerable challenges across health and social care and, as we work with around 165 local authorities and 45 NHS trusts, the Lifeways Group is already a key partner in addressing these challenges.

Below are our six priorities which we feel would put social care on a sustainable footing:

1. Commit to getting people out of hospital: Social care providers like ours have long demonstrated that with the correct funding level, we can help people out of restrictive and costly, long stays in hospitals. In the last few years, Lifeways has supported hundreds of people out of hospital to live more fulfilling, independent lives in their own homes and communities. With the right investment and right policies, this could be the parliament in which we finally end long-term hospital stays.
    
2. Urgently address mental ill-health: As of 2022, the NHS spent less than £1 out of every £10 on mental health. Yet early interventions in mental health provision are vital – and, in the long term, would end up costing the health service far less. These interventions include mental health professionals in schools, access to talking therapies, and walk-in mental health hubs.  These steps would reduce the numbers of people who continue to experience mental health problems throughout their lives – including those who receive our specialist mental health support.
    
3. Ensure commissioners have the resources to fairly fund social care: Providers – be they independent or not-for-profit – collectively subsidise the state. This year, in particular, providers have struggled to gain the uplifts they need to sustain services. Further investment is required if we aspire to pay Real Living Wage across the frontline – let alone achieve parity with Band 3 of the NHS pay-scale, a widely held sector aim. We have also endured for years the issues of lower-paid workers being unable to work more than 16 hours per week and the negative impact this limitation has on benefits, particularly the disruption to payments. To stretch the care pound further, we’d like to see two more changes in legislation and regulation:
    
   1. Current legislation mandates care providers to have physical, registered office locations for their registrations. In an era of increased digitisation, this rule is costly and obsolete.
   2. Additionally, CQC requirements in England currently prevent providers from setting up new services with more than six people. This regulation unnecessarily restricts providers from providing care and support at scale and being creative in terms of new service models which could successfully meet the needs of individuals.
       
4. More resources, not more powers, for regulators: Regulation is a driver for excellence and our regulators do an incredibly important job.  Yet my concern is that the regulators of the three nations – the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in England, and Care Inspectorates in Scotland and Wales – do not have the resources to exercise the powers they hold. The main impact for providers is delayed re-assessment. For example, in England, some of our services have not been visited by an inspector since before the pandemic. These over-due inspections give a weighting to historical findings that may not reflect current quality levels, hurting staff morale and recruitment, and wider confidence in the quality-of-service delivery.
    
5. Avoid short-term solutions to long-term workforce shortages: We warmly welcome immigration to the UK and, alongside countless other providers, we could not operate our services without migrant workers, who we greatly value. Yet too often, migration appears to be a hasty, sticking-plaster solution to long-term workforce issues. We need more focus on career pathways in the sector for workers currently living in the UK, not workers living overseas. We also need to make working in the care sector a vocation – and a viable career proposition for young people and people returning to work.
    
6. Recognise the value of independent providers, alongside the not-for-profit sector: There is an emerging trend of rhetoric that could divide independent and not-for-profit providers. Yet all providers deliver in the same market, within the same price parameters, and are regulated by the same bodies. With sustainable service delivery, the margins are the same. Providers of all types take on roles beyond care provision, supporting people to have a deeper, wider involvement in their communities. No government is going to be able to deliver on the challenging social care agenda without the whole sector behind it. You have spoken positively about private investment in your first days as Secretary of State and we urge this government to view the social care sector as one.

Thank you for considering these priorities.

Our goal is simple: we wish to become both the provider and employer of choice by 2026. To achieve our goal, we believe better service and partnership models are key.