Social care

Shaping Care Markets

This paper describes the important concept of ‘market shaping’ within the context of care for older people. It draws from current local authority good practice to identify a variety of tools that can be used to shape local markets, and could potentially be used by any market shapers of the future.

Key findings

The key tools are:

Market shaping tools

  • Comprehensive market analysis: an analysis of the needs of older people and whether supply meets those needs
  • Commissioning: outcome based commissioning, commissioning beyond care and commissioning for the whole population
  • Purchasing: local authorities must consider how their purchasing strategies for state funded older people affect providers and self funders
  • Sharing information with providers
  • Providing services in-house

Under-explored methods

  • Shaping on a larger scale: regional or cross – local authority market shaping
  • Overcoming barriers to market entry and growth
  • Improving the health of demand: supply can be stimulated by stimulating demand

The paper concludes that as markets are often influenced by a range of external factors, to be effective market shapers of the future must seek to create an environment where care markets can “shape themselves” to achieve positive outcomes, rather than maintaining outdated strategies of attempting to impose direct control over market forces.

Further reading

Who cares?
The experience of social care workers, and the enforcement of employment rights in the sector
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Nye Cominetti
To govern is to choose
The choices facing the Chancellor this autumn
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Torsten Bell, Adam Corlett, Daniel Tomlinson
A caring tax rise?
The impacts of a potential increase in National Insurance
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Torsten Bell, Adam Corlett