Have your say! Cast your vote for Laing's Healthcare 20

21 February 2012

Who are the brightest names in UK independent healthcare? Which organisations are leading the way in terms of innovation and management excellence? Laing's Healthcare 20 is the definitive list of most powerful organisations in the independent health and social care sector.

Laing & Buisson's expert consultants and report authors have drawn up the shortlist, now it's over to you to cast your vote for the top 20.

The results will be announced at the Independent Healthcare Awards gala dinner on 18 September 2012.

Independent Healthare Awards 2012 nominations open

14 February 2012

Nominations are now open for the Independent Healthcare Awards 2012.

The Awards recognise outstanding quality and innovation while rewarding the teams and individuals whose dedication and commitment helps make the UK independent healthcare sector truely world-class.

The categories include Healthcare Outcomes, Excellence in Training and Medical Practice as well as new categories which seek to recognise excellence in commissioning of health and care services.

The winners will be announced at a gala dinner to be held on 18 September 2012 at the London Marriott Hotel.

Hospitals competing for a static private healthcare pot

27 January 2012

Hospitals delivering private acute healthcare services must meet the challenges of a static market going forward following an absence of real spending growth in 2010. This is the conclusion of the analysis published by Laing & Buisson.

Laing's Healthcare Market Review 2011-12 claims that revenues generated by independent hospitals providing medical treatments in the UK remained unchanged in real terms over the year at £3.84bn. This year of stasis follows a period of 'fair' growth during the economic downturn, suggesting that the sector could now have to brace itself for a further period of economic sloth, and the fallout of public spending austerity.

Launching the report, author Philip Blackburn said: There are certainly near term challenges for service providers of private acute healthcare under current market conditions, but also opportunities in the longer term. Delivery efficiencies from providers are being solicited, not least from medical insurers which are seeking savings to pass on to their customers, and the recent OFT report which found evidence of potential competition limiters in the provision of private healthcare by hospitals and consultants.'

Laing's Healthcare Market Review 2011-12 is available to purchase now.

Children's Minister to address conference on Looked After Children

17 January 2012

As the dust begins to settle on the biggest transformation of special education in over 30 years, the government is poised to embark on far-reaching reform of the way looked after children are cared for in England and Wales.

Laing & Buisson’s conference, Looked After Children Matter: Delivering Excellent Services for Children explores the role private and voluntary sector providers can play in helping the government deliver its vision and shape the services of the future.

We are delighted to confirm that Children’s Minister Tim Loughton will open the conference with an overview of the government’s agenda.

With the number of children in care at a 24-year high, adoption rates falling and local authorities under increasing financial pressure, this unique event will provide unique insights for commissioners, regulators and providers interested in the provision of these services.

Can private investment help bridge the funding gap? What are the opportunities for forward-thinking organisations to work in partnership with local authorities? And will new markets emerge for providers of children’s residential care, specialist education, fostering and adoption services?

Experts in commissioning, regulation and family law will be joined by some of the top providers in their fields, giving delegates access to the broadest possible range of views on the future of the market, as well as providing excellent networking opportunities.

Full conference details

Demand for care beds rises, while 'private payers' become majority

5 January 2012

As the country awaits word from the government on how it intends to revamp the way in which adult social care is funded, latest research from Laing & Buisson has found that despite public policy which favours non-residential solutions to support the needs of the country's ageing population, efforts to divert demand away from care homes appear to be running out of steam.

After a year which saw much heated debate on how to shape the future of elderly care, as well as the high profile collapse of Southern Cross, the 2011/12 edition of Care of Elderly People UK Market Survey reports that the number of elderly or physically disabled people living in care homes in the UK rose to 421,000 - growth of 6,500 since 2010.

Reflecting gradual decline in the number of people who qualify for state support, the funding profile of England's care home population continued to move towards private payers in 2011.

Some 159,000 residents are now fully responsible for their care fees - 41% of the country's care home population. However, if the number of residents who pay 'top up' fees are taken into account, 55% of residents now pay something towards their care costs.

With the White Paper on adult social care funding expected in the spring, Laing & Buisson's report warns that in addition to the government reaction to the Dilnot report, Fairer Care Funding, and a response to the Department of Health's recent Oversight of the Social Care Market discussion paper, focus should be directed towards the impact of Direct Payments and personal budgets.

Commenting on this, author William Laing said: 'Widespread take-up of these new funding mechanism could radically change the nature of homecare and home help services in Britain though it would probably require a parallel expansion in advice and brokerage services to enable people with care needs to use their purchasing power effectively. While the potential exists for fundamental change in the social care market, the elephant in the room is that transformation and personalisation has to take place at a time of intense pressure on council budgets. And truly personalised services are likely to be more expensive rather than less expensive.'

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Healthcare to migrate from hospitals to the community

22 November 2011

Britain is on the cusp of a significant migration of NHS secondary healthcare services which will head out of acute hospitals and into more dispersed community-based settings, according to the latest research from Laing & Buisson.

Arguing that the move will bring about benefits to both patients and taxpayers in terms of more convenient, more responsible and more effective healthcare services Primary Care and Out of Hospital Services UK Market Report 2011/12 claims that the underlying driver of the move is the country's ageing population allied with a long standing shift in the burden of healthcare to chronic conditions of old age.

Since the NHS cannot currently afford to invest in major new asset classes, the report argues, services in a variety of specialist and niche areas - such as primary medical care, occupational health, community health, prison healthcare and commissioning support - will largely have to relocate into facilities which already exist. These sites will include community health assets encompassing community hospitals and clinics, GP surgeries, care homes, people's own homes and indeed back into freed up space on NHS acute hospitals sites, though under different management and ownership arrangements.

Commenting on the new report, Laing & Buisson's chief executive - and author of the report - William Laing said: 'Nearly all the potential migration of services out of hospitals will depend on politicians being willing to support the decommissioning of at least a portion of acute NHS hospital capacity currently used to care for mainly older people admitted as emergencies to medical wards, most of whom do not actually need to be in hospital. Without closure, partial closure or re-use of some NHS acute hospital capacity, none of the theoretical savings from the creation of alternative community based healthcare services will be 'cashable' .'

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Laing's Directory of Long Term Care Providers - sets out massive shake up

2 November 2011

In the biggest shake up of the country's long term care sector for well over a decade, the reassignment of care facilities formerly run by Southern Cross Healthcare has led to considerable changes among independent companies working in care.

These changes, and many more, are now reflected in the latest edition of Laing & Buisson's Directory of Major Long Term Care Providers, making it the most up to date listing of long term care available.

Based upon the company's most recent survey of companies with three or more homes and a comprehensive investigation into the transfers of Southern Cross homes to alternative providers, the directory offers users the best picture of corporate care holdings across the UK. Produced in association with monthly social care newsletter Community Care Market News, this 2011 edition include a top 20 of providers working in both the older people and disabled care sector and those operating in the learning disability and mentally ill sector. The directory includes summaries of all providers and a breakdown of their portfolios in terms of homes/beds owned and managed.

Commenting on the directory, Laing & Buisson's creative director Justin Merritt said: 'The Southern Cross scramble has seen a considerable reshaping of the UK's long term care league with a number of providers shooting up the table. We'll all be watching closely to see how new operator HC-One does in this changed environment and indeed how operators look to build their portfolios in light of the experiences seen at Southern Cross.'

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Personalistion agenda posing a threat to council homecare spend - new report out now

17 August 2011

The pattern of year-on-year increases in the volume of homecare hours purchased by local authorities has come to an end, with the latest analysis by Laing & Buisson showing that after a 15 year run of growth, spending in 2009/10 was down 8% over the previous 12 month period.

However, rather than marking a shift away from central government policy promoting home-based support, the latest Domiciliary Care UK Market Report argues that this change can be attributed in the main part to the personalisation agenda, which is seeing an increasing number of social services clients given the funds to purchase their own care services.

The report warns that a further response to this agenda has seen local authorities evolving their commissioning practices so that after many years of consolidating purchasing into bulk contracts they are now spot-purchasing against framework agreements.

In March 2010, 132,000 people were in receipt of personal budgets and/or direct payments, of which 48% were young disabled adults, 12% were older people aged under 75 and 40% were aged over 75 years. However, Laing & Buisson's research indicates that not all older people are willing recipients with some signing up to these new schemes as it is the only way to continue receiving care from their familiar carer.

Elsewhere, the report says that the private pay market will continue to grow as people live longer and find that they do not qualify under tighter social services eligibility criteria. The fastest growing area of the market, however, is that of NHS homecare with hospital discharge and admission-avoidance schemes fuelling much of this expansion.

Commenting on this, report author Philip Mickelborough said: 'The objectives of the NHS are clear - these schemes are designed to avoid the need to admit a client into hospital, to discharge them from hospital quickly or to avoid them going into a care home when discharged. One commissioner reported that its hospital discharge scheme had resulted in 70% of those initially deemed by doctors to need residential care being able to avoid it and stay in their own homes.'

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Optimism is keeping the children's daycare sector alive - new report out now

10 August 2011

The UK children's day nursery market has kept 'ticking along' post-recession as market size increased marginally by 1% in real terms to be worth £1.4bn, according to the latest edition of Laing & Buisson's Children's Nurseries UK Market Report 2011.

Report author Philip Blackburn argues that there is some cause for positivity as the market held firm in the past year, following a minor contraction in size during the economic downturn in 2008 and 2009. And moreover, operators surveyed for the publication had a more optimistic outlook with 39% expecting business conditions to improve within the next year.

Mr Blackburn said: 'The children's nurseries market looks to be in fair shape post-recession and the Coalition government has committed to many of Labour's spending pledges for early years, most notably extension of subsidised places for 2, 3 and 4 year olds.'

An estimated 300 nursery groups (those with three or more facilities) accounted for 21% of total UK day nursery places in 2010. The top 20 groups account for the bulk of corporate market share, at around 10% of total nursery places.

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CCMN's Annual Survey of Baseline Fees - out now

15 July 2011

Care home operators face yet another tough year thanks to local authorities again failing to match the increasing costs of providing a placement for an elderly resident in the fees which they will pay to place elderly people in beds in residential and nursing homes according to the latest edition of Community Care Market News’ Annual Survey of UK Local Authority Baseline Fee Rates.

The bleak discovery has led to concerns that in the wake of the collapse of the UK’s largest independent care home provider Southern Cross Healthcare, more operators of residential care homes for the elderly could be forced into administration thanks to ever-tightening margins.

The survey shows that the majority of local authorities across England have frozen, or reduced, the amount that they pay for care home placements. Although providers with facilities in Wales and Scotland have fared slightly better with some authorities boosting the amount they pay, this move has resulted in an average UK fee uplift for 2011/12 of just 0.3%.

Taking current levels of inflation into account, care home operators across the UK will now face an average 2.5% reduction in their margins on local authority funded residents during financial year 2011/2012. This is a dramatic step up from the 1.4% real terms cut calculated for the previous year and, if councils continue as expected, could pave the wave to similar or even greater cuts in the April 2012 fees.

Community Care Market News’ Annual Survey of UK Local Authority Baseline Fee Rates 2011/12 is available now priced at £80 for a hard copy, PDF and Excel file.

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Dangers in Dilnot for independent sector care providers

4 July 2011

The UK's leading healthcare intelligence provider Laing & Buisson has given a cautious welcome to the proposals as laid out in today's adult social care funding commission published by Andrew Dilnot.

Laing & Buisson chief executive William Laing said:

'The Dilnot report, Fairer Care Funding, presents an extremely well crafted set of proposals, which have every promise of finally resolving more than a decade of debate on the funding of long term care in England.

But there are dangers in Dilnot for independent sector providers of care homes.

Dilnot’s key proposals (*see footnote) will mean that large numbers of care home residents who are presently private payers will be drawn within the ambit of local authority payment.

Depending on how the proposals were implemented, a significant proportion of the premium fee rates which are presently needed to cross subsidise inadequate local authority fee rates may gravitate towards the latter.

According to Laing & Buisson market reports, approximately 40% of independent sector care home residents are currently private payers. Laing & Buisson’s initial estimate is that the proportion may fall to about 30-35% if the Dilnot proposals are implemented.

These concerns should not stand in the way of implementation of the Dilnot proposals, but it will be necessary carefully to consider the mechanisms for implementation in order to avoid further destabilising the independent sector at a time when it is under severe financial pressure.'

(*Dilnot’s key proposals are that the asset threshold should increase from £23,500 to £100,000 in England, and that there should be a cap of £35,000 on lifetime care costs for each individual.)

Learning disability care under threat - two free reports from Laing & Buisson

26 May 2011

Financial pressures on local authority budgets and an alarming shortage of suitable social housing stock are increasingly jeopardising the provision of support for adults with learning disabilities, according to the latest research from Laing & Buisson.

Commissioned by Anne Williams, National Director for Learning Disabilities at the Department of Health, in her role leading the (then) Valuing People Now team, the first report, Illustrative Cost Models in Learning Disabilities Social Care Provision, recognises the need to better understand the relative unit costs of different types of services and their accommodation/support components. With a view to informing debate about which approaches are most likely to be cost-effective, the report includes comprehensive illustrations and costings and comments on economies of scale. Whilst commissioned by the Department of Health, the report does not necessarily represent the Department’s views.

The second report, Cost and Cost-Effectiveness Issues in Learning Disabilities Social Care Provision, steps away from the DH remit to include provider opinion and Laing & Buisson’s own analysis. It offers complementary views and suggestions on improving spending habits as well as tackling the broader cost issues facing the sector. As a springboard for further discussion, the report focuses on ways which to achieve further cost savings; how to address the current housing challenge in terms of financing and funding; improving outcomes and further development of costing and entitlement models.

For further details please visit the Laing & Buisson Media Centre to read the full press release.

Report author David Roe will also present his reports to delegates at Laing & Buisson’s 2011 Annual Supported Living Conference, being held in central London on 22 June.