Contract change protest continues

A Spalding-based home care company is leading a wave of complaints about major changes to NHS contracts in the county.

Lincolnshire Internal Care Board (ICB) is now only using one company in South Holland for those funded via Continuing Healthcare. The board has appointed four companies to provide the service for the whole county.
“Our intention with the new contract award is to improve the consistency and standard of care for people across Lincolnshire,” says the ICB.
But the manager of Spalding’s Lincolnshire Home Care, says the move stops service-users having a choice of providers for care in their home.
Jacob Ford said the appointed company for the area, Cera Care, doesn’t have an office or staff in Spalding.
“The board believes the company will cover 100 per cent of the area despite having no offices and no staff here,” he said.
There were two demonstrations last week at the Sleaford office of the ICB by a number of care providers.
“The contingency plan for when the four main providers cannot provide the care is to keep the clients in hospital.
“The ICB will be denying people the right to die in their own homes,” said Mr Ford.
Previously, up to 70 different companies were used to provide the continuing healthcare funded by the NHS. The contract change started on April 1 and care companies claimed they had no warning before receiving a letter from the board on March 24.
“The new providers relates only to domiciliary care services funding through the Continuing Healthcare service. This is a different service to adult social care, which is run by Lincolnshire County Council,” says the ICB.
The move ‘relates to the care of 84 people with complex needs,’ added a statement on the ICB’s website.
“We do appreciate this change may cause concern for people, including our existing providers,” added the statement which said there had been prior consultation, which Mr Ford and other care providers dispute.