Market Position Statement 2025-29

For many people, receiving help to stay at home and to maintain their independence for as long as possible is what matters to them, and this is one of the key intended outcomes of our integrated adult social care model.

The way in which we deliver care and support is also changing, and our partnerships with care providers need to change too. We need to work together at different times in a person’s care and support journey, recognising that people’s needs change and that they need a responsive and agile network of support combining their resources with the NHS, social care, local communities and the independent sector. At the same time, we need to ensure this care and support is timely, sustainable and does not weaken natural support by promoting dependence on state-funded care until it’s really needed.

The Care Act 2014 places a duty on us to:

This duty will be met within the context of four overarching strategic priorities:

• Enabling more people to be healthy and stay healthy;
• Enhancing self-care and community resilience;
• Integrate and improve community services and care in people’s homes; and
• Deliver modern, safe and sustainable

In line with the strength-based approach underpinning the Care Act 2014 and the social policy changes that led to that legislation, Torbay’s commissioning approach seeks to:

• Increase the use of enabling housing-based models of care and support so that people have greater choice and control over how, where, and with whom they live and how their care is provided. These options include ambitious capital projects such as multigenerational extra care housing, smaller schemes for groups with specific needs, and new models of home care to support people's remaining living with family carers at home.
• Increase the number of people maintaining their own independence by offering better information at an early stage to enable people to recognise their own strengths and assets, combining them with voluntary or community support and access to equipment and technology to meet their needs in the first instance.
• Reduce the systemic use of residential care to meet low-level social care needs. This means not placing working-age adults into care homes wherever possible and delaying the point at which older people enter residential care. The Council and our NHS partners will only commission homes capable of meeting very complex and nursing needs, working with our care home sector to constantly improve quality and capability within Torbay.
• To support and help people stay as well and independent as possible, able to manage their own well-being in their homes, wherever possible. Where care is needed, we want people to have a choice about how their needs are met and only have to tell their story once. The people receiving services must be at the heart of what we and providers deliver together. 
  • We want people to remain in control of their lives, to remain independent and to have the opportunity to make their own choices about their care and support arrangements. 
  • We will achieve this by our Direct Payment system being as clear as possible and allowing people true autonomy to meet their eligible care and support needs. 
  • To further our work, Torbay have initiated the Direct Payments Project, which aims to review and implement recommendations from the Recommendations Report. This meeting will bring together key partners from the Council and the Integrated Care Organisation for collaborative work to improve our approach to Direct Payments in adult social care.
  • This programme of work is part of our Transformation Plan, and the implementation of the direct payment improvements will be monitored through that.