The costs
Travel costs, including costs for travel distance (fuel, maintenance etc.) and National Minimum Wage top-up pay totalled an estimated £49.7m over a 12 month period in 2017-2018.
During this period, over 148 million miles were travelled in the delivery of homecare services, with an average of 3.06 miles per visit.
These costs are enormous and some would say unavoidable – homecare requires travel and there is no way around that. However, there are tools care providers are using to reduce their travel costs per visit and in the process continually claw back precious resources.
Smarter planning – reducing costs
If you are a homecare provider you will likely have software to schedule and roster visits. But there are some scheduling and rostering solutions (SRSs) that include an integration with GoogleMaps, that allows for route optimisation and accurate calculation of travel time and accurate minimum wage top-up pay.
The data featured in the Hidden Dynamics of Homecare 2018 shows an average difference of 2 miles travelled per visit for those using the dynamic mapping integration in Access care rostering software, compared to those not using the mapping integration.
This equates to £1.38 less in travel distance pay per visit when using the dynamic mapping element. While not a huge figure on its own, when you multiply by each visit your service is delivering, day on day, week on week, then you begin to start seeing how this all adds up and will make a huge difference to your business’ bottom line.
Find out more about this GoogleMaps integration
Additional insights in The Hidden Dynamics of Homecare 2019
The Hidden Dynamics of Homecare 2019 builds on our 2018 report to uncover new areas including average pay, invoice rates and margins for state funded homecare services across England and much more. It is a vital document for homecare providers, commissioners and those with an interest in the sector and is endorsed by the United Kingdom Home Care Association.
The Hidden Dynamics Hub features blogs, infographics, videos and commentary from both reports and further research we have undertaken, visit it to get the resources you need now and watch the highlights video below to get a taste of what is included: