An Introduction and Demonstration of CareCubed – The National Care Costing Tool

Over the next six months, we will be delivering a series of CareCubed demonstration sessions exclusively for Care England members, focused on supporting providers to move from cost pressure and difficult fee negotiations towards clear, evidence‑based and more constructive conversations with commissioners.

CareCubed is now firmly established as the national care costing benchmark, used by nearly 75% of English local authorities and more than 500 providers to create a shared, transparent understanding of the genuine cost of care. These sessions are designed to show, in practical terms, how providers can use CareCubed to protect sustainability, strengthen their negotiating position, and reduce time‑consuming disputes. It is about giving providers a credible, nationally recognised ‘common currency’ that is already being used by councils to inform fee‑setting, placement discussions, and market sustainability planning.

Each demonstration will walk through:

• How CareCubed models the real cost of care, reflecting pay, pensions, on‑costs, inflationary pressures and service complexity and how this aligns with what commissioners are already using.
• How providers can stress‑test their prices against local, regional and national benchmarks, across adults, older people and working‑age services.
• How CareCubed supports fair, evidence‑based fee discussions, moving away from adversarial negotiation and towards transparent, defensible positions and how the tool is being used by councils and providers together to co-create new services.
• The sessions will be live, practical and honest, with plenty of space for questions and real‑world discussion.