Absolute Healthcare feels that the CQC’s announcement is incredibly unsupportive at a time when the future of community social care is uncertain and small, local, valued care providers who strive to provide high standards of care, are struggling to make the figures add up. It also comes at a time when the media is full of hard hitting stories and documentaries about elderly or disabled people not being given access to quality home care, and an epidemic of loneliness in the UK due to our ageing population.

Naturally we have no choice but to revisit the charges we make to our clients in the next financial year and whilst we would never dream of increasing our fees by 300%, we feel consumers should be aware of the constraints we are working under, as this will have a country-wide effect on people’s ability to access home care when they need it most.

We disagree with the CQC fee increase for the following reasons:

- A sudden 300% increase in fees from any service provider, in any industry, is unacceptable

- Costs may be rising for the CQC but what Government should concern itself with the rising cost in delivering quality care. There may otherwise be a CQC but no providers for it to oversee

- Quality care providers are already facing huge cost increases in 2016 with the rise in the minimum wage and the payment of staff travel time

- This increase in fees is totally unsupportive at a time when care providers are already being forced to increase what they charge to make ends meet

– With this fee increase, the CQC are effectively making quality care services all the more inaccessible to the people who really need them

If you agree with Absolute Healthcare’s response to the CQC consultation on fee increases – please help us by sharing, commenting and strengthening the argument to help give a voice to community care providers.