BIM52811 - Care providers: Shared Lives Adult Placement Care: extension of qualifying care relief 2017/2018 onwards

Statutory Instruments 2018 No. 317

A small and growing proportion of Shared Lives arrangements are delivered by an independent Shared Lives scheme and the arrangement is funded by the NHS, or purchased from the scheme by the individual, if they are a self-funder who pays for their own social care (social care is means-tested, so you can be eligible for state social care, but obliged to pay for it yourself).

From 2017/2018 onwards, the Qualifying Care Relief (Specified Social Care Schemes) (Amendment) Order 2018 extended Qualifying Care Relief to cover payments made by individuals funding their own care. These payments will only be eligible for relief on condition that:

a. payments are made by the Shared Lives scheme to the carer as the principal contracting for that care and;

b. the Shared Lives scheme does not permit the carer to receive any other payments for providing that care to the placed adult.

In practice this will mean that the self-funding individual passes payments for care to the scheme or the person running the scheme and the scheme makes the payment to the carer.

These conditions ensure that qualifying care relief is available only if payments are made by schemes that operate on the basis of clear contractual arrangements for the provision of care between the scheme and the carer. By restricting the relief in this way, it removes the uncertainty about the contractual arrangements for the provision of care and the service user is not put at contractual risk in relation to the carer’s role in providing care.

Multiple funding sources

Prior to the 2017/18 changes payments to carers for care that was partly funded by the local authority/Shared Lives scheme and in part by the placed adult paying the carer directly, qualified for the relief.

To remain a qualifying care scheme, a scheme which provides any care that is all self-funded by a placed adult must meet the additional condition (b) above, so where such a scheme allows for an element of part funded care to be paid directly to the carer, it would no longer be a qualifying scheme.

The means that partly self-funded care arrangements, where the carer receives part of payment directly from the placed adult, will no longer be eligible for qualifying care relief if the Shared Lives scheme which also pays that carer provides any care that is all paid for by a placed adult via that scheme.

To be eligible for the relief, the scheme would have to ensure that the part payment funded by the placed adult is not paid directly to the carer but instead directed to the scheme provider who then re-directs it to the carer.

Alternatively, the scheme provider could set up a separate scheme (scheme 2) that provides care solely for the placed adults who fund all their care.

Either way, provided the payments are made for the provision of care by the scheme under clear contractual payment arrangements between the scheme and the carer, they will be eligible for the relief.

Accommodation, food and utilities payments

If a Shared Lives scheme meets the necessary criteria to be a specified adult placement social care scheme, payments made by the placed adult directly to the carer for board and lodging will be eligible for qualifying care relief – it is only the payments for care that must be made by the scheme to ensure that the Scheme meets condition (b).