1. Birmingham City Council and Birmingham Children's Trust moving to a new finance system - information for Home Support and Supported Living contracted providers

2. Birmingham City Council, Cost Pressures/Fee Increase - Provider Engagement Sessions / Working Group (information for contracted providers)

3. Birmingham City Council - Care Homes Market Intelligence Questionnaire (Information for All Care Homes in Birmingham and Contracted Care Homes Elsewhere)

4. Care Quality Commission (CQC) - Making Sure People with Additional Needs Get Support with Utility Supplies (Information for all Providers)

5. Care Quality Commission (CQC) Updates (Information for all Providers)

6. Care Quality Commission (CQC) Update - Get Adult Social Care Data (GASCD): A New Digital Service for Providers (Information for all Providers)

7. Birmingham Community Healthcare (BCHC) NHS Foundation Trust - Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) – IPC Champion of Champions Awards 2026 Nominations – Deadline 21 August 2026 (Information for Birmingham and Solihull Care Homes)

8. Sandwell West Birmingham Hospital Trust (SWBH) - Shared Care Record – Sandwell & West Birmingham Data unavailable (Information for all Providers in Sandwell and West Birmingham)

9. Skills for Care Updates for July 2026 (Information for all Birmingham and Solihull Providers)

10. Capacity Tracker Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) Updates - What's New to Capacity Tracker July 2025 (Information for all Providers)

11. REMINDER Birmingham and Solihull Training Hub – Training Dates in July 2026 (Information for Birmingham and Solihull Care Homes)

12. REMINDER Birmingham City Council - Learning Disability, Autism (LDA) and Mental Health (MH) Provider Forum – 16 July 2026 (ONLINE via Microsoft Teams) (Information for all Birmingham and Solihull Providers)

1. Birmingham City Council and Birmingham Children's Trust moving to a new finance system - information for Home Support and Supported Living contracted providers

Birmingham City Council and Birmingham Children's Trust are moving to a new finance system.

To avoid delays to your payments, it is essential that invoices are submitted by the deadlines below.

Important: The Council will not be making routine payments between 20 July and 18 August 2026. Any late invoices may not be processed until after 18 August 2026.

Key Submission Dates

Schedule No.	Invoice Period	Invoice to be submitted to BCC by	Payment to be processed by BCC by
27/03	25 May 2026 – 21 June 2026	6 July 2026	1 August 2026
27/04	22 June 2026 – 19 July 2026	3 August 2026	29 August 2026

Action Required

For services provided between 25 May 2026 and 21 June 2026, compliant invoices must be received no later than Monday 6 July 2026.

Please send invoices to: home.support.payments.team@birmingham.gov.uk

Invoices for services provided between 22 June 2026 and 19 July 20206 must be received by 3 August 2026 in line with the existing payment schedule.

Why This Matters

If invoices are submitted late, or are returned due to missing information, payment may be delayed until after 18 August 2026.

Following the finance system migration, payments will resume from 18 August 2026 and will be processed as quickly as possible while the new system stabilises.

Invoice Checklist

Before submitting, please ensure your invoice includes:

• Letter-headed paper showing provider address, telephone number and email address
• Invoice date
• Invoice number (unique reference)
• Contract reference number (FSL or FHS)
• Service user reference number (begins with 6 or 0)
• Full name of service user
• Full address of service user
• Dates service was provided (aligned to payment schedules)
• Details of service delivered (actual service provided, not scheduled visits)
• Grand total invoice amount

Invoices missing any of the above information will be returned for correction, which may result in delayed payment.

Payment Schedules:

Home Support

Supported Living

Supported Living Providers on Auto-Payment- If you are a Supported Living provider currently on auto-payment, no action is required at this time. Further communication will be issued separately.

Financial Difficulties During the Transition Period

If, between 20 July and 18 August 2026, you experience financial difficulties that may affect your ability to continue providing care and support, please contact: marketintelligence@birmingham.gov.uk

Thank you for your cooperation and support during this transition.

2. Birmingham City Council, Cost Pressures/Fee Increase - Provider Engagement Sessions / Working Group (information for contracted providers)

The Commissioning Team are planning to run several engagement sessions and workshops with representatives from the CQC regulated care market over the Summer to discuss cost pressures and fee increases for April 2027. The aim of the sessions will be to provide a range of information from the Council’s perspective, to gain feedback from the care market about current cost pressures, sustainability risks, to better understand provider expectations.

We are seeking expressions of interest from a range of different providers across the contracted Care Home, Supported Living, Home Support and Extra Care markets who wish to take an active role in the sessions and become part of a small working group. The sessions are likely to take up around 2-3 hours of your time over a 2-3 month period, and we ask that attendees have a good understanding of their organisations’ finances and play an active role in providing feedback and engaging in discussions.

We are looking for a maximum of 10 representatives from each of the above market segments to take part – should we receive more expressions of interest we may limit the size of the groups to enable the sessions to be productive and manageable.

If you are interested in taking part, please email costofcare@birmingham.gov.uk with the following details, by Thursday 9 July:

1. Email subject header: Cost pressures/fee increase - Provider engagement sessions / working group
2. Name:
3. Job role:
4. Email address:
5. Phone number:
6. CQC Registered Location Name: (If you represent multiple then enter ‘multiple’)
7. CQC Registered Provider Name:
8. Market segment you wish to represent: (Home Support, Supported Living, Care Homes, Extra Care)

3. Birmingham City Council - Care Homes Market Intelligence Questionnaire (Information for All Care Homes in Birmingham and Contracted Care Homes Elsewhere)

We would normally be issuing the July Care Home MIQ today, however from this quarter we will be using a new system for the questionnaire that will help ensure accurate data is collected and remove the need for data quality checking and correction.

The new system is near completion and we are planning to issue it in next week’s bulletin. Although the data collection mechanism is different, the question set will remain the same.

4. Care Quality Commission (CQC) - Making Sure People with Additional Needs Get Support with Utility Supplies (Information for all Providers)

The Priority Services Register (PSR) is a free, confidential service that can help people receiving care with additional communication, access, or health needs.

The Priority Services Register (PSR)

The PSR helps utility companies, including energy suppliers, electricity, gas and water networks, support people with everyday issues, as well as during an outage.

To sign up, use your postcode to find your local utility operators and complete their registration form. Registration requires personal details, including, where relevant, whether you have a reliance on water or electricity-dependent medical equipment. This information can then lead to support such as delivery of bottled water or electric generators in a prolonged outage.

Carers can be added as a nominated contact to receive alerts on behalf of those receiving care. Care providers should notify utility operators if a person they provide care for moves or their needs change.

5. Care Quality Commission (CQC) Update (Information for all Providers)

Please use the link below for the regular CQC update for providers working in adult social care.

CQC update for adult social care providers

6. Care Quality Commission (CQC) Update - Get Adult Social Care Data (GASCD): A New Digital Service for Providers (Information for all Providers)

GASCD is a free digital service from the Department of Health and Social Care for CQC‑registered adult social care providers and local authorities.

GASCD can be used to:

• view information on care provision in local areas, including breakdowns of community care services by type
• compare care home bed occupancy with local averages
• understand local demand for community and residential care services and how local authority social care budgets are used
• explore data on disability prevalence by area.

User feedback indicates that 91% of those surveyed report improved access to information through GASCD.

A demonstration is available to show how the service can be used. Content and functionality will continue to be developed.

Demonstration of GASCD

Information on how to access the service was circulated in June to nominated individuals and registered managers via email from get.adult.social.care.data@notifications.service.gov.uk, sent to the email address registered with CQC. The subject line was “Free DHSC Digital Service for Adult Social Care Providers – Sign up now”.

From later in the summer, nominated individuals with accounts will be able to delegate access to other members of their team.

For further information, contact: getadultsocialcaredata.team@dhsc.gov.uk

7. Birmingham Community Healthcare (BCHC) NHS Foundation Trust - Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) – IPC Champion of Champions Awards 2026 Nominations – Deadline 21 August 2026 (Information for Birmingham and Solihull Care Homes)

IPC Champion of Champions Awards 2026 – Friday, 18 September 2026 - Nominations Now Open until 21 August 2026.

IPC are looking for that person/s who has really taken on the IPC Champion role after completing their IPC Champions Training. They would like to celebrate excellence and improvement in infection prevention and control (IPC) practice, recognizing new initiatives and champions who consistently promote best IPC standards.

• Nominate a colleague - Do you have an IPC Champion/s colleague who has demonstrated IPC excellence within your care home.
• Nominate yourself - Have you demonstrated IPC excellence within your care home, better still ask your line manager to nominate you

IPC Champions Awards 2026 Information

IPC Champions Awards 2026 Nomination Form

If you have any queries about regarding any of the infection control related events above, please contact the team via bchc.ipcdata1@nhs.net or 0121 466 6550

8. Sandwell West Birmingham Hospital Trust (SWBH) - Shared Care Record – Sandwell & West Birmingham Data unavailable (Information for all Providers in Sandwell and West Birmingham)

Sandwell West Birmingham Hospital Trust (SWBH) is currently undergoing a data migration which has impacted data sharing of SWBH data to the Shared Care Record. No data from SWBH trust will be available through the Shared Care Record till this is completed. It is currently estimate that the data will not be available again till mid July 2026. Please use alterative data sharing methods for the duration of the data migration.

9. Skills for Care Updates for July 2026 (Information for all Birmingham and Solihull Providers)

Skills for Care updates for July 2026 with local and national updates, have been circulated to providers. If you don't have a copy, please email marketintelligence@birmingham.gov.uk

Headlines include:

• NEW: The Training Hub by Skills for Care
• NEW: 25/26 Size & Structure of the Adult Social Care Sector and Workforce in England report
• Birmingham and Solihull Registered Managers Network meeting
• BBCS ICS Social Care & Independent Sector Faculty information
• Skills for Care National and Regional Events in July
• Other Partner News

10. Capacity Tracker Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) Updates - What's New to Capacity Tracker July 2025 (Information for all Providers)

Some changes have been made to Capacity Tracker. Unless otherwise stated, these took place on Wednesday, 1 July 2026. Please use the link below for further information

Capacity Tracker - What's New July 2026

For support with the Capacity Tracker, please see details below:

• For system support and guidance - please contact NECS Capacity Tracker Support Centre - 0191 691 3729 or necsu.capacitytracker@nhs.net (Open Monday to Friday from 8am to 5pm, excluding public holidays)
• Changing registration, closing, change of ownership – please contact the CQC - T: 03000 616161, E: enquiries@cqc.org.uk, CQC Provider Portal (Open Monday to Friday from 8.30am to 5.30pm, excluding public holidays)

If you receive an enforcement notice – please contact the NHS Business Services Authority Enforcement Team (NHSBSA) – T: 0300 330 2088, E: enforcement@nhsbsa.nhs.uk (Open Monday to Friday from 8.30am to 4.30pm

11. REMINDER Birmingham and Solihull Training Hub – Training Dates in July 2026 (Information for Birmingham and Solihull Care Homes)

Have you visited the Birmingham and Solihull training hub website yet? You can view information as someone working in a primary or social care role in the Solihull / Birmingham area, as a student looking for support with career development or as a visitor wanting to find out more

Social Care – BSol Training hub.

All training events are listed in the calendar section. You can also contact the training hub by email bsol.traininghub@nhs.net

The next sessions are:

3 July 2026 IPC Champions Forum (Quarterly) 11:30 am - 12:30 pm
9 July 2026 Deterioration and Sepsis 11.00 am - 12:00 pm
24 July 2026 IPC Champions Training Day 9:00 am - 5:00 pm

12. REMINDER Birmingham City Council - Learning Disability, Autism (LDA) and Mental Health (MH) Provider Forum – 16 July 2026 (ONLINE via Microsoft Teams) (Information for all Birmingham and Solihull Providers)

The next LDA and MH provider forum will take place on Thursday, 16 July 2026 12:00pm – 2:00pm online via Microsoft teams.

Items for the agenda will include a focus on:

• Housing needs and demand/trends
• Developing Market position statements for LDA and MH

If you would like to book a place, please complete the following registration form. If you need to cancel your booking, please email Rebecca Claridge, Senior Commissioning Officer rebecca.claridge@birmingham.gov.uk

Learning Disability, Autism and Mental Health Provider Forum - 16 July 2026

REMINDER – we have now held four LDA and MH provider forums this year and we are keen to have your feedback on these as a whole – we would be grateful if you could fill out this very short feedback survey, as this helps us to plan and improve future forums

LDA and MH Forum feedback survey