Earlier preventative support in social care could save billions

A new report from leading voices in social care suggests that earlier preventative support could save billions of pounds.

A new report from leading voices in social care calls for earlier preventative support, saying it could save billionsThe report, entitled Earlier action and support: The case for prevention in adult social care and beyond, has been jointly published by the Local Government Association (LGA), ADASS, Social Care Institute for Excellence, Mencap, Skills for Care, Think Local Act Personal, The Care Provider Alliance and Social Care Future.

It argues for a shift in care towards proactive measures and offering earlier preventative support to enable more people to lead the lives they want for longer.

Earlier preventative support links to ten-year plan for health

Setting the context for the report, the authors explain that the government’s promised ten-year plan for health “encompasses three key shifts, from: analogue to digital; acute to community; and treatment to prevention.”

The report’s focus on taking action and offering support earlier clearly “plays directly into the third shift,” but the authors suggest that it can also support the other two key shifts. In addition, it also supports many organisations’ visions for the future of adult social care.

Earlier preventative support helps people to live well in their own homes for as long as possibleOne of the report’s contributors, Skills for Care, have, for example, already published their Workforce Strategy for Adult Social Care in England which argues that a focus on prevention is needed if we do not want the number of people requiring care and support services to grow exponentially.

As a collective, the organisations behind the report represent people using services, commissioners, providers, local councils and leading research, practice and policy bodies.

Most have argued for a shift towards earlier preventative support for some time but, the paper asserts, “there is now a strong and promising link between the government’s priorities and those of the organisations who have partnered together for this paper. This creates a new opportunity to deliver.”

Defining earlier preventative support

The paper sets out four key aims. These are:

  1. Define what is meant by ‘prevention’, based on the idea of ‘earlier action and support’ (EAAS)
  2. Provide evidence of social return on investment (SROI) for earlier preventative support measures
  3. Build on existing good practices around EAAS to ensure investment in prevention starts “from the strongest foundations”
  4. Act – take meaningful action to shift towards prevention

It defines earlier preventative support as “things that can help us to keep living in a place we call home, connected and contributing to supportive communities and doing things that matter to us so that our wellbeing is maintained or increased for as long as possible.”

The report also defines services that prioritise EAAS as services that:

  • Enable access to earlier support to people in anticipation of needs that may otherwise escalate.
  • Are targeted at specific cohorts of people (e.g. those experiencing long-term unemployment, people discharged from hospital), or specific areas of support (e.g. preventing falls, supporting physical activity).
  • Support individuals with reason to draw on care and support, in their context – with support for those who offer care unpaid and for wider families and communities
  • Are provided within and by communities, often with minimal or no input from registered professionals.
  • Require the right infrastructure to link people to services and support, to encourage and enable inclusion, and to help communities adapt to new needs.
  • Often work alongside people, helping them to feel more able to do things for themselves, rather than providing things to people.
  • Include services delivered and/or funded by the NHS (e.g. social prescribing), other parts of councils’ wider community capacity building work, or the voluntary and community sector, as well as by councils’ adult social services departments.

Earlier preventative support, then, enables people to live their lives with dignity, doing the things that matter to them, and maintain as much independence as possible, for as long as possible.

Shifting gear into prevention mode

To help realise this vision, the paper sets out key actions needed to move care forward into prevention mode over treatment:

  • Government funding for a programme of ‘EAAS Pathfinders’
  • Work with councils and their partners, including people who draw on care and support, to develop accompanying, fair and robust outcome measures to demonstrate the impact of investment. They suggest that Think Local Act Personal’s ‘Making it Real’ I/We statements, and the Social Care Future vision should be used as a springboard to discussions.
  • Work with councils and their partners – including people who draw on care and support – to develop a more consistent, pan-government approach to cost-benefit analysis, so that future activity is assessed in a consistent way.
  • Provide new funding for independent evaluations of existing council services and support that are focussed on prevention
  • Review how supported housing is funded, considering a specific housing support fund
  • Adopt recommendations in the recent Workforce Strategy, led by Skills for Care and developed with the wider sector, that support prevention

Wide-reaching benefits of earlier preventative support

There are wide-reaching financial and non-financial benefits for earlier preventative support in careThe report also combines evidence from a range of evaluations of different EAAS interventions, focusing on their Social Return on Investment (SROI). This has resulted in a Prevention Spending Model (PSM) which analyses how much money could be saved if councils invested in earlier preventative support – that is, activities “that promote adults’ health and wellbeing and help to prevent health and care needs from arising or increasing in future.”

The PSM suggests that EAAS interventions could save approximately £3.17 for every pound invested in them.

The partners studied 10 different interventions and found that, if they were implemented across all local authority areas in England, they would result in approximately £11.1 billion in savings to councils, the NHS and the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector.

As well as the benefits experienced by public and third sector bodies, the report notes that “there are no doubt wider benefits, both financial and non-financial, enjoyed by those taking part in the interventions and their families, friends and local communities.”

Councillor David Fothergill, chair of the LGA’s Community Wellbeing Board said:

“Properly funded preventative services would mean councils, working closely with partners and people drawing on support, can maximize the impact of their resources and address community needs. This will also drive down demand for more expensive acute health and social care support.

“This report brings together a coalition of support for people with lived experience and other partners in the sector, which shows the importance of prevention being embedded as a core element of health and care systems, rather than being treated as a supplementary service only supported when budgets allow.”

Training that supports person-centred care

Our training courses are underpinned by person centred care, dignity in care, compassionate care and promoting independence and wellbeingFirst Response Training (FRT) is a leading, national training provider.

They deliver over 7,000 courses each year in the fields of health and safety, first aid, fire safety, food safety, mental health, health and social care and other special focus topics.

Their diverse portfolio includes training awards designed for health and social organisations, such as Person Centred Care and Support, Promoting Dignity in Care, Safeguarding AdultsDuty of CareEquality, Diversity and InclusionUnderstanding Mental Health and many others.

A trainer from FRT explains:

“All care and support should be person-centred, dignified and compassionate, helping people to lead fulfilling, meaningful lives that promote independence and wellbeing.

“Earlier preventative support is perhaps the purest expression of this and something which could become key for our ageing population.

“All of our health and social care training courses are underpinned with the concepts of personalisation, dignity and compassion in care and promoting independence.”

For more information on the training that FRT can provide, please call them today on freephone 0800 310 2300 or send an e-mail to info@firstresponsetraining.com.

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