Modelling Care System Costs and Contributions

Our programme’s research on Modelling Care System Costs and Contributions approaches the sustainability of care systems from a statistical angle and examines both the costs of and the contributions made to care systems. Its statistical analysis is designed to frame and inform all aspects of our programme’s research. The austerity measures which have affected care systems in the UK since 2010, and our programme’s goal of understanding the sustainability of both the formal and the family/unpaid care sectors to achieve a fair and equitable care system, make it especially timely focus on contributions and costs, with particular reference to carers, care users and employers.

The team is led by Dr Matthew Bennett and Professor Janet Fast, working with researchers co-located with them at the Universities of Birmingham and Alberta. Its work focuses on the public and private costs of care and the contributions made by individuals, the state and employers to England’s care system. The team is examining the financial and social sustainability of these costs and contributions under different scenarios, and the effects of changes to adult social care funding on service users, carers and other stakeholders.

Its main research questions are:

1. What are the contributions and costs of care? How are these distributed between the state, individuals and employers?
2. How sustainable are care costs and contributions under different change scenarios, in terms of both financial and social sustainability?
3. What impact have changes in Adult Social Care funding in England had on the wellbeing of care users, carers and other stakeholders? What are the implications of these for the sustainability of the care system?
4. What can be learned from other countries with experience of measuring, modelling and attempting to reconfigure caring costs and contributions?