New programme to ensure greater local choice of care services
The Department of Health launches a new programme to provide more choice and higher quality of care and support services across the country.
The Developing Care Markets for Quality and Choice (DCMQC) programme will help local authorities build their capacity to shape a diverse, vibrant and high quality market for social care services. The programme will improve choice, provide tailored care and focus care on the outcomes that matter to people.
This reinforces the Government’s commitment in the Caring for our Future White Paper__ to provide support to help local authorities develop their market capacity to provide greater choice for users and drive up quality in care services.
Care and Support Minister Norman Lamb said:
“People deserve a high quality care service that meets their needs. Everyone’s needs are different. We can’t have a one size fits all approach. This new programme will increase choice in the care services provided to them.
“We want to improve the care services already in place by giving local authorities the skills to work together with their care providers and anticipate future priorities, pressures and challenges in order to tailor care for their communities.”
In the draft Care and Support Bill, local councils will be given a legal responsibility to promote a range of high quality services that meet the needs of the community. The DCMQC programme will support local authorities to carry out this duty.
For example, the programme will support local authorities to improve their market shaping capacity, through preparing or improving their Market Position Statements. Market Position Statements are important in enabling and maintaining high quality, diverse care markets. They set out current and future demand trends and explain the desired outcomes of the local authority, helping local providers to respond and invest in their staff and service models. Find out more about how the new legal framework, set out in the draft Care and Support Bill, will affect the role of local authorities in care and support.
The DCMQC programme is funded by the Department of Health and has been developed by the Institute of Public Care at Oxford Brookes University in collaboration with the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services.