Shifting Shapes: Supporting quality and choice in local care markets
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Shifting Shapes: How can local care markets support quality and choice for all?
IRAS ID
229609
Contact name
Catherine Needham
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Birmingham
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 6 months, 0 days
Research summary
Under the Care Act 2014, local authorities have a responsibility to ensure that there is a wide variety of good quality care services available for people who need them. Care should be more personalised with people holding their own budgets and using them to have control over their care choices.
Cost-effectiveness is also important: providers of information and services should offer value for money; local authorities should be spending money effectively to support a wide range of good quality providers. This is particularly vital given the context of an overall reduction in spending on social care.
This project has been commissioned by the Department of Health's Policy Research Programme to assess how far local authorities are effectively supporting market-shaping and personalisation activities as required by the Care Act. It will assess how far choice and good quality are available, looking at national information on the diversity of the care market, and then focusing in depth on what support and services are available in eight local authorities. It will look at existing information on people's experiences of care services, and also interview people who design, support, run and use care services to find out whether services are diverse, good quality, and easily accessible.
Some people who use care services pay some or all of the costs of care(and are called self-funders), whereas other people's costs are paid for by the local authority because they do not have enough money to pay for care themselves. The research will include both of these groups, recognising that they may have different experiences of care.
REC name
London - Camberwell St Giles Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/LO/1729
Date of REC Opinion
3 Nov 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion