New health and social care alliance launches

More than 40 regional and local care associations in England have joined forces to form a new group to represent providers.

Called the Care Association Alliance, members believe it will be better placed to represent the needs of its members than existing national bodies.

Debbie Le Quesne, the Chief Executive of the West Midlands Care Association, who will co-chair the organisation with Erica Lockhart from Surrey Care Association, says the new group will continue to support and work alongside existing industry umbrella bodies.

These include Care England, the result of a merger rebranding last year of the National Care Association and the English Community Care Association, and the National Care Forum.

Ms Le Quesne said: “We believe we are best placed to provide this brokerage platform since our constituent associations directly represent providers at the sharp end of care delivery, particularly the smaller groups and individual independent care services. The national representative organisations often operate at arm’s length from the providers they represent and as such, we believe, they do not maintain an intimate understanding of the impact of strategic policy and regulation on the front line.”

Mrs Lockhart added: “The associations have been working together for some time to support new collaborations between them, share best practice and to plan campaigns. Originally we did not want to set up another national representative body and were keen to join with one of the other established national organisations. But as time has passed we became more aware that our objectives differ to the extent that a separate representative body was necessary.”

To date, the group has signed up 41 local associations and more are expected to join at the Alliance’s next meeting on 9th October.

Ms Le Quesne concluded: “We remain focused on helping members deliver excellence in care. We will support each other through sharing best practice and intelligence. What will change dramatically now, however, is that our previously often-fragmented voices as smaller representative groups will establish a much louder, credible one to be heard by our key industry decision-makers.”