Wider markets and potential future demands

For this assessment criterion, you will be required to analyse and compare the wider market in respect of similar care provision. For supporting information, you may wish to read back through the previous section regarding factors that drive change in service provision.

National care services, their role and service provision

Although the whole sector is underfunded, national care services often have far more resources to be creative and innovate new services and ways of working. By looking at how things are done by bigger organisations, you may find ideas that you wish to implement within your own service. Similarly, looking at how other organisations are preparing for future changes can help you to identify trends that you may wish to consider yourself. There may also be opportunities to work in partnership with larger organisations to achieve mutually beneficial objectives.

Local – public, private, not-for-profit and charitable sector and market position

In the previous section, we looked at how local authorities produce a Market Position Statement that identifies the current and future care needs within their region. This information may be used to identify gaps in the market.

There may be opportunities to work in partnership with the not-for-profit and voluntary sectors to add value to the services that you provide.

How national and local services are commissioned, procured and funded and how this informs service availability

Again, in the previous section, we looked at how health and care services are funded. How this funding is spent will have a big influence on service availability and lack of funds throughout the whole sector means that great care must be taken when choosing which services to provide. Services that meet wider objectives or are more cost-effective will often be favoured.

How own service relates to the wider market and is able to meet potential future demands of those in need of care and support

Think about where your own service is positioned within the health and social care sector. Are you providing services that are in demand? What changes might you need to make to move forward? How can you provide better services at a lower cost?

What challenges might be envisaged in future in respect of supply and demand of adult care services

Funding has been a long-term challenge within the sector – after years of cuts, budgets in 2019/2020 only just exceeded those of 2010/2011 despite increased demand for services. Innovating ways of providing better services for less money has always been an issue within health and social care because, historically, manager training has been based on clinical and operational knowledge. The sector is now beginning to understand that there is a need for more innovators and entrepreneurs to develop creative solutions – indeed, this unit on entrepreneurship was only developed for the Level 5 Diploma in 2020!