What is a Market Position Statement and what do we hope to achieve by it?

The Care Act 2014 places duties on local authorities regarding market development within Adult Social Care. In November 2021 the Adult Social Care White Paper set out a 10 year vision specifying three key objectives that support the Care Act statutory responsibilities. These were:

• People have choice, control, and support to live independent lives
• People can access outstanding quality and tailored care and support
• People find Adult Social Care fair and accessible

In order to enact these duties local authorities have developed their strategic commissioning approaches to ensure a well-informed understanding of the health and social care needs of their communities and making sure that they prioritise and target resources in the most effective way. A market position statement is one way that local authorities can describe the current and developing market picture and influence how providers might respond to that. In Gloucestershire, as joint commissioners, we are committed to developing a 'whole system' approach and to developing a single shared vision.

The Market Position Statement (MPS) provides information about the adult social care market in Gloucestershire so that current and prospective providers understand the local context, what is likely to change and where opportunities might arise in the future. It sets out the key pressures for Adult Social Care (ASC) now and in the future and recognises the system pressures within the health and social care sector across the Integrated Care System (ICS).

This MPS aims to describe our strategic commissioning approach to ensure that the market will be ready to meet the challenges ahead. To manage this within the context of the growing constraints of increasing demand and reducing workforce, the emphasis will be on maximising use of the resources available. This will include supporting people to live independently for as long as possible and reducing provision that there is less demand for, to redirect workforce to effectively support those in the most need.

The MPS is for both existing and potential providers with the purpose of helping them shape their business plans to support the shared vision for adult social care in the future. It aims to:

• Share information and analysis of future population needs
• Review what we know about the current ‘market’ of services
• Describe our future approach to commissioning services
• Enable providers to position themselves to meet future demands/ needs
• Effectively engage and support service providers to achieve a robust and sustainable market

We recognise that we are not the only purchasers of ASC in Gloucestershire. There are a large number of older people living in Gloucestershire that fund their own care, (according to ONS figures from the 2021 census 2023 46.5% of older people in care homes were self-funding, and 37.6% of people in the community (Care homes and estimating the self-funding population, England - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk) and Estimating the size of the self-funding population in the community, England - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)), and a large number of people of working age are placed in Gloucestershire care homes by other counties (our data shows over half). However, we also recognise that as the single biggest purchaser we have the means to influence and shape the market for everyone.

We understand that the market is constantly changing as do the pressures and demands that it faces. We want our MPS to be an agile resource that grows and develops in order that commissioners and providers can access plans, strategies, and relevant information to shape and inform a sustainable care and support market. This is why we have made it web based with a view to easy navigation to the most relevant information and to facilitate timely updates.