Foreword by our executive director for adults and communities

We all want to live in the place we call home with the people and things that we love, in communities where we look out for one another, doing things that matter to us.

That’s the social care future we seek. #socialcarefuture

Hello, I am Katy Calvin-Thomas, Place Director for Barnsley, and the Executive Director for Adult Social Services here in Barnsley.

Landing on this part of the Councils website you will find out more about our care market in Barnsley including our plans and priorities and what we are looking for from care providers.

So, first of all, Barnsley is a fantastic place to live and work and we are immensely proud or everyone’s contribution to the town, and our 2030 plan continues to drive forward our ambition for Barnsley.

Barnsley is the place of possibilities.

Valuing care, and the significant contribution that this makes to the economy, to our families and our friends remains a key priority for the council and its partners.

It’s so important to us that when people need care and support that they have access to the best that Barnsley can provide. This market position statement sets out some of the areas that are important for us, to improve the provision of care and support.  I hope the details in here will enable you to understand how the independent sector and communities can work with the council to deliver great care and support.

We have ambitious plans for Barnsley, and we will be working with our partners across the health and care system to deliver these through our adult social care strategy and our health and care plan.

We continue to have real challenges across the health and care system in Barnsley, but we know we can keep improving things so that Barnsley can be the best version of itself.

To support our care providers with their own developments, we are producing a series of market shaping plans. These plans will include older people’s services, day opportunities, learning disability services and prevention which will help providers understand what type of services we'll need in the future. Our market shaping plans will also look at the sustainability of our market amidst rising challenges.

Our Proud to Care hub continues to be a success. In 2024 Barnsley received a grant for £250,000 to help us to deliver our plans to encourage and support people to work in health and care.

Our Adult Social Care vision is for Barnsley people to be supported to live in their own homes as independently as possible surrounded by the people and things they love the most.

We want to focus on what we do to prevent people needing care and support and are continuing to grow our in house re-ablement team to support people who need short term help to get back to where they were.

We currently have enough capacity in home care and the number of providers who support younger adults to live independently. We do however need to look at accommodation options for some of those people, like people with a learning disability and those who need support with their mental health.

We continue to have higher than average vacancy rates in some of our older people care homes and want to work with providers who deliver good quality care and support them to develop services where we have gaps including nursing care and care for those people with complex needs associated with a dementia diagnosis.

We continue to build our links with health as we develop local plans. We benefit in Barnsley from our strong relationship with our voluntary, community and NHS partners who help us to engage with our communities, individuals and groups to create better support networks like peer support.

Digital will continue to feature in our plans, and we want to work with care providers who are innovative in this space and bring new ideas to the table.

And finally, we want everyone who accesses social care and support to have the best experience that they can. We have made some changes to the way we monitor care providers including how we identify and manage risk. We'll continue to focus on improving the quality of our care market and will work with providers to improve CQC ratings across the borough. 

We hope that you share our vison and want to work with us to deliver that vision in Barnsley and we look forward to working with you in the future.

Our vision

Our 2030 vision is Barnsley - the place of possibilities. By 2030 we want everyone to benefit from and contribute to making our borough a thriving place of possibilities.

Our new council plan identifies five priorities:

• Healthy Barnsley
• Learning Barnsley
• Growing Barnsley
• Sustainable Barnsley
• Enabling Barnsley - we're a modern, inclusive, efficient, productive and high-performing council

Figure 1: The five council priorities.

Adult social care priorities

We've set important priorities that will guide all our work in Adult Social Care, including our strategies and different projects. These priorities will help us focus on what matters most and what we want to achieve for Barnsley. Annually, our Better Lives programme will reflect our response to the changing circumstances within Adult Social Care. We'll continue to listen and learn to improve what we do.

 Outcomes set out in the council plan include: 

• People are safe and feel safe.
• People live independently with good physical and mental health for as long as possible.
• We've reduced inequalities in health and income across the borough.
• People have access to early help and support.
• People are supported to have safe, warm, sustainable homes.
• People live in great places, are recycling more and wasting less, feel connected and valued in their community.

We've identified key priorities for improvement and change within our Adult Social Care strategy:

1. build on the opportunities of our joint management arrangements with health
2. empowering people to stay healthy and independent
3. keeping people safe and well
4. support that works for you and your family
5. a valued and empowered workforce
6. we'll look at digital as an enabler

Working with our partners and providers, we'll be working on these areas to put in place new ways of working and achieve better outcomes for the people we support.

Find out about our Better Lives programme.

Executive summary

• Help for people to help themselves – early intervention, prevention, healthy population.
  
  
• Help when you need it – help focused on supporting people to regain levels of independence.
  
  
• Personalised support to address health and wellbeing for on-going support needs.

Living well

Please note: the supply and demand for each service shown in the table below is based on the expected direction of travel in that area.

Service type	Supply	Demand	Summary
Early intervention and prevention	Increasing	Increasing	We'll be looking at opportunities to increase our offer around early intervention and prevention, developing support in our communities and ensuring people utilise community assets wherever possible.
Personalisation – direct payment	Increasing	Increasing	We want to see more people take a direct payment to manage their care arrangements with the right support to do this
Reablement	Increasing	Increasing	The council will increase the capacity within its reablement service to support more people living in the community.
Housing and accommodation	-	-	We want to make sure there is the right type and amount of accommodation with support for people living in the community We will be working with our colleagues in strategic housing to develop a plan for Barnsley.
Day opportunities	-	-	We're developing a market shaping plan around day opportunities. The plan will set out what we need to support more people in the community through the day and reflect feedback from the people of Barnsley. The plan will be published in the Autumn of 2025.
Respite - learning disability	Increasing	Increasing	We want to increase the support available to unpaid carers, ensuring they have access to timely and flexible respite services when they need a break from their caring role.
Autistic spectrum conditions	Increasing	Increasing	Barnsley has recently published it all age Autism Strategy. We will use this to support our commissioning plans for Autistic people.
Adult community support and enablement service	Stable	Increasing	We're reviewing our contract for supported living to determine whether we have the right number of providers on there. We will do this alongside our accommodation plans to make sure people have the right place to live with the right support.
Community equipment	Increasing	Increasing	We're reviewing our arrangements for the provision of equipment to ensure we maximise opportunities to support people at the earliest opportunity.
Assisted living technology/digital solutions	Increasing	Increasing	We'll look at how service users and care providers can use technology to help people to meet their care outcomes.
Support for unpaid carers	Increasing	Increasing	We'll review our Carers' Strategy and work in partnership to identify unpaid carers. We'll develop plans to reach more carers and work together to improve the range of support offered to them.

Ageing well

Please note: the supply and demand for each service shown in the table below is based on the expected direction of travel in that area.

Service type	Supply	Demand	Summary
Residential care	-	-	We'll be developing a market shaping plan for services to support older people. The plan will consider the current residential care market including bed numbers, occupancy levels and quality and will outline what we expect to ned in the future based on our ageing population. We have limited nursing beds in the borough and are looking at how we support people with a diagnosis of dementia in care homes to ensure people are kept safe and receive the right level of support.
Dementia care	Increasing	Increasing	We want more people to know how to reduce the risk of dementia and for those people who develop dementia to have access to the right support throughout their lifetime.
Intermediate care	Increasing	Increasing	Following a review of our intermediate care offer we want to increase the number of people we support at home. We will also be working with health to ensure we have the right number of beds, in the right place, for people who cannot be supported at home.
Day care	-	-	We are developing a market shaping plan around day opportunities. The plan will set out what we need to support more people in the community through the day and reflect feedback from the people of Barnsley. The plan will be published in the Autumn of 2025.
Home care	Stable	Increasing	Our home care framework (STLAH) now hosts up to 40 providers. The framework has been capped at this number to make sure the market is sustainable for providers in Barnsley. The framework gives us the right to increase or decrease the number of providers we do business with subject to demand. We will look at our model for home care as part of our market shaping plan.
Extra care	Stable	Stable	We want people living in extra care to get the right support to enable them to remain there for life. We will review our extra care model in 2025/2026 to inform future plans.

Our data

Barnsley's demographics

In Barnsley, the population size has increased by 5.9%, from around 231,200 in 2011 to 244,600 in 2021

• 0 to 19 year olds make up 22% (54,400) of Barnsley's population.
• 20 to 64 year olds make up 58% (142,800) of Barnsley's population.
• 64+ year olds make up 20% (47,400) of Barnsley's population.
• The number of residents 65+ is predicted to reach 60,500 by 2030.

Find out more about how life has changed in Barnsley.

Ethnic minority groups

According to the 2021 Census, 3.1% of Barnsley’s resident population class themselves as part of an ethnic minority group, this is 7600 residents and 10,200 residents report their main language is not English (4.2%).  In Barnsley we have 1493 residents aged 45-64, 323 aged 65-84, and 24 aged 85 years and above who class themselves as part of an ethnic minority group.

There are small pockets of older ethnic minority groups across Barnsley. Based on 2019 ONS population data by ethnic group Barnsley has 1.7% of those aged 50 to 64 from ethnic minority groups (excluding white minorities), and 0.7% for those aged 65+.

Older LGBTQ+ Adults

The census 2021 estimates show that Barnsley people aged 16 years and over identified as:

• 91.57% straight or heterosexual
• 1.50% gay or lesbian
• 0.91% bisexual
• 0.07% pansexual
• 0.03% asexual
• 0.01% queer
• 0.09% another sexual orientation
• 5.83% did not answer the question

3.07% of people in Yorkshire and Humber identify as gay or lesbian, bisexual, or other sexual orientation, compared to England at 3.2% (ONS, 2022).

Carers

Carers UK State of Caring Survey 2024 and State of Caring: impact on mental health and the need for support from social care services 2025 identify:

• Barnsley has an estimated 28,000 family, (or unpaid) carers. In 24/25 997 carers received a carers assessment from the local authority, this is a 14% decrease from 23/24.
• As at the end of March 2024, 1121 carers received a service following either an assessment or review.
• 1428 carers were registered with the carers service at the end of March 2025.

People accessing support

2023/24

• In 2023/2024 Barnsley had 1271 social care users per 100,000 population aged 18 to 64 and 6010 per 100,000 aged 65+.
• During 23/24 there were 25,801 contacts made with adult social care (124% increase from 20/21) (figures up to March 2024).
• 13,723 were new contacts (people not in receipt of long term support at the time of contact) (figures up to March 2024).
• In total adult social care funded 5552 packages of care/support during the year and as at the 31 of March 2024, 2776 remained in receipt of a long term package of care.
• 233 packages were funded by Barnsley ICB (figures up to March 2024).
  

Service type	Number of service users
Residential nursing care	995
Home care	1047

 

2024/25

• In 2024/2025 Barnsley had 2665 social care users per 100,000 population aged 18-64 and 13,297 per 100,000 aged 65+.
• During 2024/2025 there were 26,665 contacts into Audit Social Care during the year (a 3.2% Increase on 2023/24) (figures up to March 25). 13,409 were new contacts (from people not in receipt of long-term support at the time of contact) (figures up to March 2025).
• In total Adult Social Care provided services on 4961 referrals during the year (figures up to 2025) 3019 of the long-term support plans were still active at 31^stMarch 25.

Service type	Number of service users
Residential nursing care	1907
Home care	1758

Personalisation and direct payments 

As of 31 March 2025, 21% of adult social care service users received a direct payment to pay for their care and support.

Date	Number of service users who received direct payments
March 2025	638

Continuing healthcare funded services

Referrals received 2024/25	Home care	Residential or no package
848	365	483

 

Type	Total number of patients	Home care	Residential
CHC	146	73	73
JPOC	155	108	47
FNC	66	N/A	N/A

Fully funded S117

Type	Total number of patients	Home care	Residential
S117	16	1	15

Fast tracks

Current patients	Home care	Residential
99	43	46

Market overview

Residential care

Barnsley currently has 68 care homes operating across the borough. 40 care homes are registered to support those people aged 65 and over with the remaining 28 care homes offering specialist provision to working age adults and/or those people with more complex needs.

Older people's care homes

Of the 40 care homes, six are registered to deliver nursing care. The average size of a care home is 45 beds, the smallest is 12 beds and the largest 88 beds.

The 40 care homes operating under our framework contract have a total of 1797 CQC registered beds.

Average occupancy has increased following a 10 to 15% reduction during the pandemic and now averages at around 85%.

CQC ratings:

• Outstanding - 2 (5%)
• Good - 30 (75%)
• Requires improvement - 7 (17.5%)
• Inadequate - 1 (2.5%)

There remains excess capacity across 65+ residential care although this is reducing as a result of home closures. Providers operating below 90% occupancy are at increased risk of failure as the revenue generated from placements may not cover both long and short-term costs resulting in provider exits from the market.

There are currently 20 care homes operating in Barnsley at less than 90% occupancy with a total of 265 vacant beds.

The council purchase approximately 60% of the 1797 beds currently registered in care homes in Barnsley. Using data from the NHS capacity tracker providers report that 302 beds are vacant meaning that the council purchase 72% of the occupied beds with the remaining 28% occupied by self-funders or people placed in Barnsley from another area.

Bed numbers used excluded care homes that are still registered with CQC but have exited the market.

Specialist care homes

Specialist care homes have an average bed number of 12 beds; the smallest is two beds and the largest is 46 beds.

CQC ratings:

• Outstanding – 1 (3.5%)
• Good – 21 (75%)
• Requires improvement – 5 (18%)
• Inadequate – 0 (0.0%)
• Not yet inspected - 1 (3.5%)

No provider has more than three homes operating in the borough. However, several of our specialist homes are part of larger organisations operating both regionally and nationally.

Typically, occupancy rates in specialist care homes in Barnsley have been higher than those in care homes for people aged 65+. However, as of May 2025, occupancy rates were around 89% in comparison to 84% for homes for older people. There are a total of 330 beds across the 28 specialist homes with 33 vacancies.

10 care homes are operating with occupancy levels less than 90% with a total of 30 beds vacant.

No provider has more than three homes operating in the borough, however a number of our specialist homes are part of larger organisations operating both regionally and nationally.

Home care

Barnsley currently has 48 home care providers registered to operate across the borough.

The majority of providers are small, local, independent organisations operating solely in Barnsley. However, a number of providers also deliver home care in other local authority areas.

38 providers are part of the council's framework contract for home care. This includes 16 of the 48 providers registered in Barnsley with the remainder registered in neighbouring authorities. 19 agencies are operating on a spot purchase basis.

CQC ratings (for agencies registered in Barnsley):

• Outstanding – 0 – (0.0%)
• Good – 32 (65%)
• Requires improvement - 5 (13%)
• Inadequate – 0 – (0.0%)
• Not yet inspected – 11 (22%)

As of 31 March 2025, there were 1177 active packages of home care with a total of 18,527.5 hours of care per week.

Finance

Barnsley adult social care budget and spend 

Total gross spend in 2024/25 on adult social care services/provision was £116.7 million, of which £96.0 million (representing 82%) relates to spend on direct care provision, eg. residential/nursing care, domiciliary care, etc.

The above was partly funded through contributions from service users, Better Care Fund and government grants. The table below summarises the total net spend on direct care provision within adult social care in 2024/25.

Provision	2024/25 spend (£'000)
Community based support	46,326
Nursing care	3,100
Residential care	42,125
Supported accommodation	1,062
Short term support	3,436
Gross care provision spend	96,049
Client contribution income	-22,499
Net care provision spend	73,550

The adult social care budget for 2025/26 has been increased by £10.2 million to take account of expected increased cost pressures arising from demographic changes and care provider fee increases due to national living wage and other inflationary pressures. The budget increase has been mainly funded from the following resources: Council Tax adult social care precept, social care grant and wider efficiencies across the Council.

Looking forward to 2026/27, the economic conditions facing the Council is one of increased uncertainty due to the following: rising pay costs (eg. national living wage), high inflation and interest rates, rising service demand and a cost-of-living crisis (exacerbated by the energy crisis). The funding outlook is also uncertain with Government funding not keeping pace with rising inflation and demand pressures facing adult social care – resulting in the need to potentially find further efficiencies in future years.

Average fees paid for care services

Service	2024/25	2025/26
Residential care 65+	£751.56	£806.42
Residential care (*enhanced) 65+	£805.22	£864.00
Residential EMI 65+	£807.62	£866.58
Residential EMI (*enhanced) 65+	£870.56	£934.11
Residential 18-64 (average)	n/a	2841.58
Support to live at home - standard care	£24.21	£25.65
Support to live at home - enhanced care	£27.38	£29.03
Adult community support and enablement service - standard care	£22.43	£23.72
Adult community support and enablement service - complex care	£24.39	£25.86

*Enhanced rate paid to providers who commit to paying care staff £1 above the national living wage.

Nursing rates for residential care and residential EMI (including enhanced service) are as above, plus funded nursing care within that financial year.

Workforce

In Barnsley there are an estimated 7100 jobs in adult social care, with 6600 of those posts filled leaving approximately 500 vacant posts.

Of the 6600 filled posts 5350 are in the independent sector and 425 in the local authority.

Skills, recruitment and retention

Skills for Care estimates that the staff turnover rate in Barnsley was 18.6%, which was lower than the region average of 24.2%.

Latest data available as of October 2024.

Barnsley is proud to host a Proud to Care hub to support recruitment and retention across the health and care sector. In 2024 Barnsley was successful in a bid to secure grant funding from the Rayne Foundation to enable further growth of the hub including the development of care awards, leadership programmes and strengthening our approach to supporting care workers on their career pathway.

The council continues its commitment to ensuring direct care staff working as part of council contracts are paid £1 above the national living wage.

Commissioning intentions: living well

Individuals and families are healthy, resilient and have the confidence and skills to thrive and achieve their full potential so that collectively our communities achieve the best possible outcomes for themselves, their families and each other.

Support to individuals and families will be offered within their community and as close to home as possible.

Early intervention and prevention

Early intervention and prevention are at the core of our approach to reducing the overall need for high-cost social care and crisis services and improving overall outcomes and health inequalities. The authority aims to commission services that promote health, wellbeing and independence, enabling people to have choice and control as well as reducing the risk of people reaching crisis point and/or needing future intensive care and support.

Barnsley wants to make sure that everyone has the ability to live happy and healthy lives. To do this we'll work with our communities and organisations involved with communities to develop support that makes sense to them. Our approach will be to work with groups of people and organisations to develop, design and where necessary change the way support is provided. This approach should help people get support early and avoid people escalating into a crisis.

We recognise that most of our resources are used to provide reactive support for people when things have got really challenging for them. We want to target more resources to support earlier on in people’s lives.

Our plans are to commission services which:

• empower people and communities to build capacity and resilience, so they can do more for themselves
• address the underlying causes and ensure people have access to early help and support around things that impact on physical and mental wellbeing (housing, mental health, substance misuse, caring)
• look at solutions to address the risks of social isolation in older people or other vulnerable adults highlighted through the pandemic
• operate a home-first model, where possible ensuring support is offered in a way that allows people to remain living in their own homes for as long as possible.
• maximise people’s independence, doing with and not for.
• support the view of 'lives not services', are asset based, and form part of an individual’s wider circle of support including the community in which they live.
• are progression focussed, moving away from long term maintenance wherever possible.
• identify opportunities for early intervention and prevention.
• reflect Barnsley’s public health agenda focussing on the wider determinants of a person’s health and wellbeing which may impact on their need for support.
• supports seamless pathways and links to other services.
• promotes the use of technology to meet individual needs.

To do this, commissioners will: 

• work with partners and the market to develop support that promotes early intervention and prevention, and support that reduces risks of harm and prevents or delays admission into hospital or long-term residential care.
• commission high quality services that deliver value for money ensuring that the Barnsley pound is maximised.
• work with providers who can clearly demonstrate a commitment to delivering high quality care and who place service users at the centre of what they do.
• work with providers to ensure Barnsley has a diverse and sustainable market which can continually grow to meet the needs of the borough in future years.
• support providers to continually improve services and to ensure that both national and local standards of care continue to be met.
• co-design services with partners, staff and service users to ensure they are fit for purpose.
• develop a market that offers service users a choice in how and from whom they receive their support.
• identify gaps in service provision through the monitoring of data available and ensure these form part of future commissioning intentions.
• continue to promote community-based services and reduce admissions to long term residential care.
• develop services to ensure people can be discharged from hospital in a timely manner and with the right support avoiding unnecessary admissions into residential care.

Our approach to prevention will be based on a better understanding of our local populations health needs and we will work closely with colleagues from Public Health to understand how we can commission services that support the wider determinants of health.

We'll continue to develop stronger partnerships with the third sector and build on existing networks such as Age Friendly and Dementia Alliance.

Our Age Friendly Barnsley partners are:

• Age UK
• BMBC
• Berneslai Homes
• South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive
• South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue
• Barnsley U3A (University of the Third Age)
• Barnsley Dementia Third Sector Alliance
• South Yorkshire ICB Barnsley Place

Personalisation - direct payments

The number of people accessing a direct payment or support managed account has been increasing annually; however, we recognise that a number of direct payment holders are using their funding to purchase traditional models of care such as home care.

We would like to see service users who choose a direct payment be more creative with their budgets, using community assets as part of their care plans and one of our priorities in 2025 is to review the use of Personal Assistants.

Personal assistants provide individuals with the opportunity to tailor support to meet their needs, which is often a more empowering and flexible option.

There is however a recognised gap, creating a delay for service users waiting for PA’s to be recruited to progress their care plan. We've started working with a wider group from other authorities to build on best practice and identify opportunities to develop a PA market. This is in the early stages. 

Reablement

The reablement service supports the Borough of Barnsley with hospital discharges, intermediate care, short stays and community referrals. The service aims to enable individuals to redevelop or learn daily living skills, increase independence and reduce the need for long-term care.

The service, which is for those people aged over 18, can support people for up to six weeks. However, as of March 2025 the average length of time in service was two to three weeks.

We've extended our support offer to people who have needs associated with their mental health and plan to extend further to offer support to people with a learning disability and young people who are preparing for adulthood.

Year	Referrals	Independent	Percentage	Ongoing care package	Percentage
2022-23	1472	559	27.98	240	16.30
2024/25	1741	438	25.15	271	15.56

Financial impact

The service has contributed to the delivery of over £1.035 million in savings in recent years. This cost saving relates to all the work undertaken by reablement and front door teams that has reduced purchasing costs within adult social care.

The processes and systems currently in place are planned for review, which are anticipated to further increase the savings achieved in future financial years.

Learning disabilities

Strategically, Barnsley is part of the South Yorkshire Integrated Care System (ICS) and we also enjoy a good working relationship with our West Yorkshire Transforming Care Partnership (TCP) colleagues.

Our Learning Disability Delivery Group has six ambitions for Barnsley people who have a learning disability:

• starting well
• preventing well
• diagnosing well
• supporting well
• living well
• dying well

Supported Activities for people with a learning disability

The offer for day opportunities is known as supported activities and is part of our in-house offer to people with a learning disability and autism.

The service provides person-centred, outcome focused support which is tailored to individual needs. The offer can be accessed through a range of community venues, individual sessions or one of the Council’s three buildings which are located across the borough.

Approximately 110 individuals are currently accessing the service from one to five days each week.

We continue to enhance the offer to autistic people, with bespoke training for day services staff and are exploring additional venues and opportunities to provide safe environments for access and engagement, tailored to the individual’s support needs.

A wider review of day opportunities is taking place which will inform our market shaping plan due to be published in 2025.

Respite for people with a learning disability or autism

In June 2024 Making Space were awarded a contract to deliver care and support in Silver Street, which is a six-bed residential respite service. The service is currently operating at full capacity and holding a waiting list.

Our market shaping plans which will be developed during 2025 will consider the demand for respite care including respite for adults with complex needs.

Hospital avoidance and discharge

We've worked with our SYICS colleagues to procure a new crisis/safe space service for South Yorkshire aimed at reducing admissions to specialist hospitals for people who have a learning disability and/or autism. The contract for this service has been awarded to Voyage and we are working with them to find an appropriate location within South Yorkshire to develop the service.

Barnsley has secured NHSE capital funding to develop three highly specialist bungalows to enable the discharge from hospital for three specific long stay transforming care patients. We've appointed Reside With Progress as the housing provider. The project is currently in design phase; and we're engaging with a range of stakeholders to support this.

Autistic spectrum conditions

Barnsley has an all-age autism strategy, which has the same six themes as the national strategy:

• improving understanding and acceptance of autism within society
• improving autistic children and young people’s access to education, and supporting positive transitions into adulthood
• supporting more autistic people into employment
• tackling health and care inequalities for autistic people
• building the right support in the community and supporting people in inpatient care
• improving support within the criminal and youth justice systems.

The strategy and its action plan will be reviewed and updated annually, and we will use this to inform our commissioning intentions. 

Specialist residential care

Specialist residential care, which is predominantly occupied by working age adults is currently purchased under single spot contractual arrangements. This means that contracts and fees can be tailored to the needs of the individual. To ensure fees are fair we use the Carecubed Tool to provide a fee range based on individual need.

A number of our specialist residential care homes host residents placed from out of area. This carries a risk for the council and can place additional pressure on our NHS services. We'll continue to work with specialist care home providers to consider how we can make sure that wherever possible beds are available and used for Barnsley residents.

Housing and accommodation

We know we need more supported living opportunities for people with learning disabilities and/or autism over the next ten years in Barnsley. This is approximately 10 new homes a year - in a managed and phased manner. We are working with our framework providers to develop new sustainable and affordable provision.

In February 2025 a new service opened in Barnsley offering 15 single occupancy apartments.

We want to work with the right housing providers to build the right homes in the right places and welcome early engagement with providers about potential plans. We're working with our colleagues in planning and housing benefit so that our input is strategic, joined up and helpful to potential providers.

We want people to have more choice over where they live and who they live with to make sure they’re supported in housing where they can feel safe and happy. To support this, we have an Accommodation and Housing Plan.

The key priorities of the plan are:

• Increase the supply and range of quality supported living within Barnsley to meet the needs identified in the South Yorkshire MPS.
• Reduce the use of inappropriate out of borough placements.
• Better understand the future housing needs of young people coming through transitions.
• Improve the management of the residential care market to deliver more specialist and fit for purpose supply of quality options within Barnsley.
• Increase access to general needs housing for people with learning disabilities and autism.
• Improve the use of data and intelligence on existing placements and costs to inform future commissioning decisions.

The key principals underlying the plan are:

• New housing solutions are delivered in genuine partnership with providers, people with lived experience and South Yorkshire ICB commissioners and social care colleagues.
• Working only with regulatory compliant social housing providers
• Supported living providers will be on the ACSES framework
• Rents are affordable within housing benefit limits and allow the council to reclaim the full subsidy from DWP
• Own front door rather than shared accommodation
• Residential providers will be encouraged to use the Care Cubed tool to determine a fair fee
• The location of existing supported living services and residential care services will be taken into account when developing future options

You can read more about how we'll work together to help people with learning disabilities and autism in the South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board’s market position statement.

During 2025 we are planning our approach to the procurement of our specialist supported living provision for autistic adults – Dillington Mews. We'll be engaging with the provider sector as part of this. The procurement is anticipated to go-live in early 2026 and will be through YORtender.

Adult Community Support and Enablement Service (Supported Living)

Adult Community Support and Enablement Services (ACSES) is our framework contract for the provision of care and support to people living in their own homes or in supported living accommodation. Providers on this framework are expected to offer progression-based support to help people to live independently with supported housing options and/or enablement support.

The ACSES framework was originally commissioned in 2017 and over the years contracted service providers have continued to develop proven specialisms to support the changing needs of people with a learning disability, physical disability, mental health and ASD and achieve the outcomes for people using the service.

The current ACSES framework contract commenced on the 1 March 2023 with an end date of March 2028.

There remain opportunities for providers on the ACSES framework to deliver supported living services in Barnsley, although the number of commissioned support hours is not guaranteed.

It is anticipated that the support required will continue to increase steadily over the term of the contract.

There are currently 21 service providers on the ACSES framework, and it is expected this will be sufficient to support current needs.

The previous gap in ACSES provision related mainly to supporting people with a mental health diagnosis. The are now an additional eight service providers who are contracted to support this service group. Commissioners will work with providers to ensure the right level of service is available to support the varying complexity of needs for people with mental health.

There are also specific service groups where further provision is required especially in relation to people with challenging behaviours and young people transitioning to adulthood.

Mental health

A significant amount of consultation was undertaken as part of the development process of Barnsley’s all-age Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2022 to 2026. This strategy directly contributes to improving mental health and wellbeing across the Borough.

Read the Barnsley Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2022-26.

In relation to the implementation of the strategy, a mental health strategy delivery plan and mental health dashboard has been developed, and the Barnsley Mental Health Forum (a service user and carer group) have also developed several quality standards against which progress is being measured.

The all-age mental health and wellbeing strategy is also a key enabler of a 'healthy Barnsley' and will also impact on delivery of the overall Barnsley 2030 vision.

As a strategy it covers a wide range of mental health needs from perinatal, young people, prevention, such as suicide prevention, eating disorders, through to older people with dementia, with the overall aim of helping people to live independent lives.

The mental health social workers specialise in helping people with mental health conditions to live independently in the community with a recovery focus where possible, adopting a strengths-based approach and ensuring each person is engaging in an active life, addressing issues of inclusion and diversity, ensuring equal access and opportunities and getting rid of discrimination and intolerance.

The services commissioned in Barnsley enable adults to have greater choice and control over their care, and to live well in their community. In Barnsley there are a small number of specialist residential care homes and supported living units that provide mental health support. There are capacity issues in relation to care and support for specific diagnosed mental health such as eating disorders, dementia and behaviours that challenge.

Digital innovation

There are now an increasing range of digital tools to support the way care and support is assessed and delivered that would support better outcomes for people.

Digital innovations can improve the way we use information about how people live their lives, so they can have more meaningful support plans.

We will be engaging with providers to trial new approaches and where possible future commissioning will be based on the following principles:

• Increased support available to back-office functions through the automation of tasks.
• Increasing expectations that a digital option is available e.g. to keep people in their own homes.
• The offer of web-based information, advice and self-support.
• Information sharing to support more joined up care and support.
• Monitoring and reporting of health conditions.
• Use of video meetings and consultations.
• Apps to support information sharing and support planning.
• Robotics to support care workers around manual handling.

Unpaid carers

Whilst it is acknowledged that not all carers will want or require support, it is imperative that we take steps to identify those that do and provide an offer of both early intervention and more intensive support where appropriate to meet their wide range of needs.

Our Barnsley All Age Carers Strategy strategic vision; ‘Carers are identified and recognised and have access to information and practical and emotional support to help them achieve the outcomes which matter most to them’.

The Barnsley All Age Carers Strategy Steering Group will work in partnership to ensure processes are transparent, maintain and update the Barnsley Carers and Young Carers Strategy, and review, develop, and contribute to the delivery of the Carers Strategy Delivery Action Plan.

The focus will be on all the priorities of the Barnsley Carers Strategy as detailed below:

• raising awareness to increase the identification of carers
• working with carers
• assessing carers’ needs
• carers’ health and well-being
• carer breaks
• helping carers stay in work
• young carers
• parent carers

Work on the key priorities will help us shape and inform our future carers service offer.

Commissioning intentions: ageing well

In Barnsley we'll support our ageing population by offering person-centred, flexible, integrated care and support in their community or at home.

Through early interventions we aim to maximise people’s health, wellbeing and independence and reduce the need for long term support wherever possible.

Residential care

The proportion of 65+ people with needs met by residential care/nursing is high in Barnsley; 787 (22/23 figure) compared to 560.8 nationally and 643.7 regionally per 100,0000 population. This will be a key area to improve. The 23/24 figure for Barnsley reduced to 707.9.

In November 2021 the council went out to tender for a new residential and nursing care home framework. The new service specification outlines a number of key outcomes expected of providers whilst also outlining the support available from health and social care partners to enable providers to deliver against these. The current contract can be extended up to the 31 March 2027.

39 care homes operate under the current framework which remains open to new applications.

Barnsley has generally had an oversupply of residential beds within the market, with current occupancy rates averaging at around 85% as at March 25.

Through our market shaping plan which will be published in 2026 we'll outline our plans to develop a residential care market that has a higher number of good quality beds. This means that we'll look to stop working with providers who have a sustained period of poor quality provision demonstrated through their CQC rating and/or based on local intelligence. Reducing the number of beds by de-commissioning poor quality services will support those providers offering good services to increase occupancy and support financial sustainability.

Capacity

The table below shows year on year the combined occupancy and vacancy rates for all residential and nursing care homes in the borough.

	Maximum capacity	Occupied	Closed capacity	Vacancies (admittable) %
2022	1777	1391	0	21.7%
2023	1784	1392	73	17.9%
2024	1780	1482	45	14.2%
2025	1797	1495	32	13.6%

Vacancies

The table details vacancy rates annually against each of the types of residential care provision.

Vacancies admittable (January)	2022	2023	2024
General residential	246	192	138
General nursing	19	19	21
Dementia residential	109	103	89
Dementia nursing	12	5	5

Dementia care

Barnsley has 32 care homes who are registered with CQC to provide dementia care, however only 24 of these self-describe as EMI.

As of March 2024, the council had 529 service users in residential care with a recorded status of dementia.

We've seen an increase in requests for one-to-one support for individuals with more complex needs in residential care.

During 2025/26 commissioners will be reviewing the needs of individuals with more challenging and complex behaviours and how these are met within residential care settings. Following this an assessment of current local provision will be undertaken to identify future commissioning intentions.

Our vision will be to commission dementia care that can support residents throughout their diagnosis including any deterioration and increase in needs and to ensure that they continue to enjoy a good quality of life in an environment that allows them to maximise their independence.

Intermediate care (IMC)

A review of the Barnsley Intermediate Care Service (IMC) has highlighted several opportunities for service development focussing on improving service user outcomes, quality of care and sustainability. This includes the growth of community IMC to support more people in their own home as well as making sure we have the right number of beds for people whose needs cannot be met in the community.

The current bed base for IMC is located within BDGH with other beds spot purchased from a number of care home across the borough.

Although the Barnsley Hospital site is the current best available option, best practice has identified that IMC facilities are most effective when housed outside of the hospital site. The move to the hospital site is intended to be temporary until a long-term location for the Acorn unit is available.

The demand for IMC services has increased and currently the service provides up to 50 beds across a mixed economy and 170 services users at home who would otherwise be in a care home setting.

Service users, IMC workforce and the wider community will be further engaged and invited to help shape the future estate of the IMC service in 2025/26.

Day opportunities

Barnsley currently commissions a buildings-based dementia wellbeing day service for those people with a dementia diagnosis.

Service users with other needs can access other health and wellbeing services, including building-based centres, delivered by providers in the community.

The overall aim of the health and wellbeing centres (day services) is to promote healthy lifestyles, reduce isolation, stimulate interest and regain skills to promote and increase independence. It provides respite and a break for both the carer and the cared for person.

A review of day services has identified a range of issues including demand for the service and transport arrangements with service users feeding back that they would prefer services that are closer to where they live and offer flexibility in the days and times, they are accessible

The outcome of the review will form our market shaping plan for day opportunities which will be published in the Autumn of 2025. The plan will describe what we need the market to look like in this area to help providers develop their own business plans.

Home care

Demand for home care is rising steadily increasing from 1023 packages of care in March 2024 to 1171 in March 2025.

The number of hours of care being delivered has increased by 15% in that period from 15660 hours per week in March 2024 to 18527.50 in March 2025.

Under previous contractual arrangements 48% of homecare packages were being awarded on a spot contract basis, which presented significant challenges and risks to the council.

To address this, and to stabilise the market, the council went out to tender in September 2023 for a flexible framework of up to 40 providers that could demonstrate quality in the care and support they deliver. The new framework is operational from the 1 February 2024 and is anticipated to meet existing demand; however, can be re-opened where there is a need.

As of March 25, 38 providers were operating under the framework.

The long-term plan for home care in Barnsley is to become part of a wider community offer. There will be a move away from purchasing based on time and task, with care packages being outcome focussed, and providers given more autonomy to determine how those outcomes will be delivered through multi-disciplinary approaches and in agreement with service users and their families.

Extra care

Barnsley currently hosts four schemes designed to offer extra care. In April 2021 a single provider contract was developed for the delivery of on-site 24-hour care and support to residents in two of the schemes. The 2 remaining schemes currently operate a sheltered housing model. These arrangements will remain in place until March 2027.

As of March 25, the service supported 33 tenants delivering 490.5 hours of care and support per week.

The new service model brings together care and support with a focus on early intervention and prevention, community involvement and with a view to ensuring that extra care residents can remain in their home until the end of their life without the need for residential care.

During 2025/26 we'll review the overall impact and outcomes achieved in these schemes to inform future plans.

Procurement opportunities

Early intervention

Contract	Summary	Renewal	Value (£)
Independent Complaints and Advocacy Service (ICAS)	The ICAS service in Barnsley offers a timely, free, independent, professional and confidential complaints and advocacy service for anyone living in Barnsley who has an issue/complaint regarding any health service provided/commissioned by the NHS, or for social care services provided or commissioned by us.	March 2027 (plus option to extend +1+1 up to March 2029)	43,550
Barnsley Carers Service	The Barnsley Carers Service provides information, advice and support to improve the mental, physical, emotional and economic wellbeing of carers.	2024/2026 (option to extend for 2 years)	228,000

Transitions (learning disability/mental health)

Contract	Summary	Renewal	Value (£)
Adult community support and enablement service (supported living)	Framework contract for support provision in the service users own home.	2028	Variable

Older people

Contract	Summary	Renewal	Value (£)
Residential and nursing care	The council currently holds a framework agreement with 46 care home providers for the delivery of residential and nursing care across the borough.	2027	Variable
Health and wellbeing centres	Buildings-based day service to older people.	2026
Home care (support to live at home)	Framework contract for home care support predominantly but not limited to those people over 65.	2026/29 (option to extend for up to three years)
Extra care	24-hour model of wellbeing and care within a purpose built extra care scheme.	2027

Other

Contract	Summary	Renewal	Value (£)
Advocacy	An independent advocacy service for adults residing in the borough, regarding issues around health and social care.	2027/2030 (option to extend for up to three years)	£211,000

 

Brokerage

In 2024, in partnership with Adult Social Care, Commissioning Improvement and Assurance completed a change management process to formerly establish a brokerage team. The function was originally developed during the pandemic to support timely discharges from hospital, and following positive feedback from stakeholders, and an increase in productivity was developed as a permanent team from July 2024.

The Brokerage Team are responsible for realising community care packages to ensure that we comply with contractual requirements and support the gathering of market intelligence to inform future commissioning plans. Providers have reported an improved experience following the development of the new brokerage function.

Quality assurance

 

Quality standards are imperative to the delivery of safe and effective services that will help people achieve their desired outcomes. Our contracts and quality team are responsible for using data and intelligence on both regulated and non-regulated services across the borough to ensure they're compliant and support our market shaping. We're reviewing our approach to quality management and assurance of providers to ensure this is as robust as possible.

We've adopted a risk-based methodology for providers, whereby our oversight is based on intelligence and assessment which indicates risk within the service. Where risk is identified, a risk response plan is agreed internally with our adult social care colleagues. This may be in the form of announced or unannounced visits, targeted audits, and/or requests for additional information.

The risk areas listed below are how we make our judgements:

• safeguarding 
• incidents 
• people's needs 
• contractual compliance and quality 
• complaints and feedback 
• financial status 
• workforce and capacity 
• management and leadership 
• regulatory compliance 
• service disruption and delivery 

Social value and carbon footprint

In line with the council's 2030 vision, we want to work with providers who can help us to deliver our ambitions around social value and reducing our carbon footprint.

Our contracts will include a requirement for providers to evidence how their services support the principles of social value and deliver the council's ambition to ensure people live in sustainable communities with reduced carbon emissions.

What businesses and organisations can do

• Champion healthy workplaces and active travel.
• Bring the zero-carbon ambition to life by using sustainable sources to run their services.
• Run services efficiently and responsibly to benefit the environment and community.
• Support volunteering opportunities and community group initiatives.

Read our Social Value Policy.

How to engage with us/co-production

In Barnsley, we want to develop further the approach of working with people with lived experience, as there is a recognition that there is further work to be done to ensure that there is real inclusive input over the design and delivery of the services Barnsley provides. Adapting the current Think Local Act Personal group (TLAP) approach to a People with Lived Experience Co-production Group is an important step forward in making care and support services more inclusive, responsive, and person-centred, by capitalising on the feedback from partners and people with lived experience. This approach emphasises the importance of person-centred care and highlights the contributions of individuals with lived experiences in shaping policies and practices, utilising crucial feedback to undertake this work.  

We recognise that we cannot meet the challenges faced by the local authority and our health partners without a continued close working relationship with all of our stakeholders including providers, service users and carers.

In order to develop creative, innovative services which will help deliver our vision, commissioners will continue to use a range of methods to support the on-going development of commissioning intentions and the co-production of services with stakeholders.

Our offer to support providers can be described as follows:

• Workforce planning and development.
• Implementing a refreshed quality framework for contracted care providers.
• Regular provider forums that cover prevention and wellbeing services through to specialist learning disability provision are available to local providers regardless of contract status. Alongside information sharing around gaps and tender opportunities, the forums will provide the opportunity for developing best practice within the provision of care and support.
• Continued promotion of individual budgets and direct payments.
• Involving providers in meaningful operational and commercial discussions as part of project work, service shaping and pre procurement.
• Progression of key commissioning plans.

The recommendations below are for all parts of the market, and they aim to help organisations to understand what they can do to make sure that their services align with the council’s priorities for care and support in the future:

• Use tools to gather feedback from people who use your services and develop your organisation and service provision.
• Support us in developing and shaping the market locally, such as regularly attending provider forums.
• Access training and proactively use the council’s contracts and quality team to help improve your service quality.
• Engage with the work on integrating health and social care services, so the system works for you and your service users.
• Focus on maximising independence, supporting people to help themselves as much as possible.
• Think about how your services could support the increase in the number of service users who take up direct payments for their care and support.

Working with people and communities

In Barnsley we want everyone to have the best possible chance of enjoying life in good physical and mental health. Our Adult Social Care services play a vital role in making sure local people experience high-quality care and support when they need it.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) strategy makes a commitment to deliver regulation driven by people's needs and experiences of care. Their single assessment framework supports this commitment.

Using new ‘quality statements’ called ‘we statements’ CQC will focus on specific topic areas. The ‘we statements’ are written from a provider's perspective and provide information on what CQC expect of them. They draw on previous work developed by Think Local Act Personal (TLAP), National Voices and the Coalition for Collaborative Care on Making it Real.

CQC will make judgements using evidence which will include people’s experience.
The ‘we statements’ show what is needed to deliver high-quality, person-centred care. They directly relate to the regulations, and are used in the assessment framework to:

• Sets out clearly what people should expect a good service to look like.
• Places people’s experiences of care at the heart of CQC judgements.
• Makes sure that gathering and responding to feedback is central to CQC expectations of providers and systems.

Our framework for working with people and communities will provide adult social care staff with the principals, tools and resources for working with our Barnsley people and communities. This will allow people’s experience of care to be captured and placed at the heart of what we do in Barnsley Place, health and adult social care.

Meet the commissioners

Adults Commissioning, Improvement and Assurance structure and portfolios:

Jayne Hellowell - Service Director

Katherine Purton - Head of Service Commissioning

• Emma White - Public Health Principal
  • Alec Tinker - Public Health Senior Practitioner
    
    • Zoe Boyes – Public Health Project Officer
    • Lauren Dalton – Public Health Project Officer
      
      
• Alison Rumbol - Senior Commissioning Manager
  
  
• Cath Erine - Service Manager Safeguarding Adults
  • Jonathan Douglas - Multi-agency Trainer Adults
  • Callum Hobson - Business Support Officer
  • Charlotte Cox - Business Support Officer

Leads	Portfolios (Commissioning)
Emma White	Distributed model of Public Health Carers Co-production Dementia Falls prevention
Alison Rumbol	Learning disabilities Complex needs Autism Advocacy Adult community support and enablement services (ACSES)
Cath Erine	Safeguarding

Sharon Graham - Head of Service Commissioning

• Clare Burton - Senior Commissioning Manager
  • Val Cole - Commissioning Manager
    
    
• Jayne Hemmingham - Senior Commissioning Manager
  • Joe Allen - Project Assurance and Improvement Manager
    
    
• Diane Turner - Brokerage Manager
  • Terri Pinder - Brokerage Officer
  • Gillian Scallon - Brokerage Officer
  • Christine Sharp - Brokerage Officer
  • Louise Ellis - Brokerage Officer
  • Julie Griffiths - Brokerage Officer
    
    
• Adrian Hobson - Senior Contracts and Compliance Manager
  • Diane Swift-Baldock - Contracts and Compliance Manager
    • Jo Harper - Contracts, Projects and Quality Officer
    • Dawn Mullins - Contracts, Projects and Quality Officer
    • Anne Flear - Contracts, Projects and Quality Officer
    • Gayle Bennett - Contracts, Projects and Quality Officer
    • Debbie Whitehead – Contracts, Projects and Quality Officer
      
      
• Debra Anglesea – Service Manager Quality

Leads	Portfolios (Commissioning)
Clare Burton	Day opportunities Physical disabilities Housing / accommodation strategic lead
Jane Hemmingham	Older people Brokerage International recruitment
Adrian Hobson Debra Anglesea	Contract compliance and quality assurance

Jacqui Atkinson - Service Improvement Manager

• Kate Liddall - Programme Manager
  • Hayley Appleby - Project Manager
  • Hayley Oughton - Project Manager
  • George Angus - Project Assurance and Improvement Manager
  • Emma Heyes - Project Assurance and Improvement Manager
  • Helen Furniss - Project Officer Wellbeing
  • Angie East - Project Officer Wellbeing
    
    
• Catherine Steele - CHC Income Officer
  • Jessica Conway - Business Support Officer
  • Victoria Wainwright - Business Support Officer
    
    
• Shelley Gill - Senior Personalisation and Monitoring Officer
  • Amanda Lindley - Personalisation and Monitoring Officer
  • Rachel Schofield - Personalisation and Monitoring Officer
  • Julie Jagger - Personalisation and Monitoring Officer
  • Sarah Austin - Personalisation and Monitoring Officer

Leads	Portfolios (Improvement)
Catherine Steele	Resource allocation
Shelley Gill	Personalisation and monitoring
Kate Liddall	Better Lives programme

Paige Madden - Quality Assurance Manager

Lead	Portfolios (Assurance)
Paige Madden	Quality Assurance review Audit of existing approaches for improvement

Cross-cutting workstreams:

• Market shaping
• Contract management
• Contract compliance and quality assurance
• Finance/systems
• Digital
• Workforce

Useful links

• Barnsley 2030
• Barnsley Council
• Barnsley Council Contract Register
• Live Well Barnsley
• Joint Strategic Needs Assessment
• NHS South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board
• YORtender

Plans/strategies

• Barnsley Council key strategies
• Barnsley Council Medium Financial Strategy
• Council Plan 2021-24
• Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2016-2020
• Adult Social Care Prevention Strategy