More Than A Provider – support providers join forces to call for social care change

More Than A Provider is a collaborative of six non-profit learning disability and autism providers that share the same values. It is made up of MacIntyre, Choice Support, Dimensions, Certitude, United Response and the BrandonTrust, which have more than two hundred and forty years of experience between us. Our members work with more than 80% of local authorities in England and Wales and support more than 12,000 people. From bringing people out of institutions into the community to delivering employment programmes that bring economic investment to local areas; the group is determined to support government across key areas of policy – to be more than just providers of social care.

The Social Care Future vision to ensure that people with a learning disability or autism live a ‘gloriously ordinary life’ inspired the collaboration.

The collaborative is focused on providing solutions to issues so that it can be the partner of policy makers and use its experience to bring about change.

As a collaborative, More Than A Provider wants to make this a reality for the people we support and thousands across the UK.  Many of the policies needed to make this happen already exist in law, for example, in the Care Act 2014, but these are yet to be implemented.

To achieve this vision we are calling on the government to:

1. Introduce a minimum benchmark for social care pay at NHS Band 3
2. Introduce a pay progression framework for social care
3. Introduce national standards for outcomes-based commissioning
4. Ensure statutory inclusion of voluntary and community organisations in Integrated Care Boards
5. Implement the Hewitt Review’s recommendation for consolidated health and social care budgets
6. Include supported housing in local planning targets
7. Introduce a ‘kickstart’ equivalent for employing young people with a learning disability and/or autism.

Policy proposal for the future of social care

You can read more about More Than A Provider’s vision for social care. This is the document we will be sharing with people who are interested in social care locally and nationally over the next few months, to call for change.

What happens next?

The Chief Executives of the More Than A Provider collaborative will meet decision makers to talk about the policy proposals and find out how the six support providers can help politicians to make good decisions about social care.

Additionally, each organisation will be supporting people they support and colleagues to meet their constituency MP or leading prospective parliamentary candidate before the next general election, to share their experiences.

More Than A Provider will be speaking to journalists about the policy proposals to raise awareness of its policies and each of the support providers will be sharing news on their websites and social media channels.