The Adult Social Care precipice: Residential Nursing accounts for £235M of the annual KCC budget

Dynamic contracts, the pandemic, demographic and public health pressures meant it grew by 17% per year over the last 8 years.

Reform now forecasts growth of 3%. This despite a projected 20% increase in over 65’s in Kent in the same timeframe.

Kent Lib Dems think this is utterly unrealistic, a risk to statutory service provision and discredits the Reform UK promise to fix Kent.

The DOGE team, the DOLGE team, the Cabinet member and the leader are seemingly already asleep on the job.

Richard Streatfeild Kent Lib Dem ASC spokesman in the last administration said,

“I was on the committee last year that discussed this item and I think we all want to get the best value for money for the Kent taxpayer. We also want to safeguard our most vulnerable residents.

"In the papers in January 2024 it was stated there were 270 Care Homes in Kent of which 179 were on dynamic purchasing contracts. This paper suggests we are going to move to 216 on Open Framework. If you look at the, publicly available, risk register there is a high risk that providers may refuse to move to open framework. The KCC CQC report specifically highlights working with partners is an issue. I think it is reasonable for the Council before it goes down this path to have these risks better understood, quantified, and removed, reduced, or mitigated.”

According to KCC papers:

“The service should be considered in the context of the significant external and internal pressures on the service which have significantly changed from when the contract was initiated in 2016. These pressures include:

• The demand for care and support for people with a greater level of complexity of need.
• Inflationary pressures and financial sustainability issues.
• Increased placement costs seen across Kent and nationally.
• Workforce pressures and the recruitment and retention of high-quality staff
• Quality issues resulting in poor CQC rating and contract suspensions.”

Kent Lib Dems have warned Reform of the dangers of proceeding without levelling with the people of Kent about the inherent risks in this contract.  And more is to come, £352M of annual Social Care contracts are due to be renewed before April 2026. KCC stands at the edge of a very deep precipice. It is time to level with Kent.