Briefing note on Mears Care in Devon– January 2017
Background Given the national attention afforded to adult social care in recent weeks Devon County Council (DCC) would like to ensure clarity in terms of the current situation surrounding Mears Care in Devon. As described in detail below the situation in Devon and Torbay differs markedly. Mears Care is not a major provider of care in Devon, but rather one of 3 coordinators of care services – known as primary providers - under the new Living Well at Home contract. Devon’s direct providers of social care, especially those delivering care within the areas coordinated by Mears Care, are anxious to stress that they deliver services of high quality and that there have been no quality or safeguarding issues related to the care they are providing.
Living Well at Home in Devon With the Living Well at Home (LWAH) contract, which went live in July 2016, Devon County Council (DCC) has radically changed the way we commission services from the independent sector. Three coordinators of care services – known as primary providers - have been appointed to co-ordinate, support and develop the local market across 8 zones within the county (see figure 1). These primary providers (coordinators of care within the zones), their provider partners (the direct providers of care), DCC and health colleagues will work as a team across Devon, finding better ways of planning with the whole health and care system to better meet future requirements.
From April 2018 we will shift to outcome-based commissioning that will free providers to work with the people they support to flexibly design the package of care that best meets the needs of each individual. This will bring to an end the ‘time and task’ approach that currently predominates. This will not only be more personalised but will make best use of the skills and capacity of providers.
Mears Care Mears Care secured 4 of the 8 zones – Exeter, East Devon, South Devon and part of West Devon. Initially, it also provided a direct care service to 109 people, however the vast majority of that business was smoothly transferred to Bay Care in December 2016, leaving 17 clients in Devon still directly provided for by Mears. Unlike in the Torbay area, Mears Care is not, therefore, a major provider of care.
During the late summer/early autumn of 2016 safeguarding and quality issues related to Mears Care provision of social care services emerged in Torbay. It became clear that, in a small number of cases, these issues also related to Mears Care’s direct provision in the DCC area. This led to a cautionary suspension of new packages of care with Mears Care. This suspension was lifted, following a safeguarding meeting in early January, as partners had been satisfied that the issues had been resolved.
It is important to emphasise that these issues did not apply to all the other people who are supported in the areas covered by Mears. Current total personal care provision for Mears zones (zones 4, 5, 6 and 7) is 2543 clients. Direct provision by Mears is only 0.7% of the total personal care provision for these zones and 1.9% of the current LWAH provision. These people have their needs met by other providers. It is also worth emphasising that the Devon market for home care services as a whole is rated as good or outstanding by CQC and performs better than the regional average. At the 1st November 91% of Devon’s home care services rated good or outstanding compared with an average of 87% in the South West and 79% nationally.
The Council and the CCG continues to work with Mears to improve the effectiveness of its arrangements for the co-ordination of the supply chain and its development of the market.
Figure 1: Zones for delivery of Living Well at Home contract