Issue - meetings

This reports intention is to update Children’s and Adults Health and Wellbeing, Policy Development Scrutiny Panel on the progress to date on transformation of Adult Social Care.

Councillor Alison Born, Cabinet Member for Adults introduced the report to the Panel. She explained that the intention of the Plan was to bring services in line with best practice across the country.

She said they want to enable our services to make better use of the local voluntary and community services, ensure that we can support people at an earlier stage in their life and to improve access to services.

She added that they were also working on the connections between Children and Adult Services and the transitionary period between the two.

She notified the Panel of the seven workstreams to the Plan:

·  Early Intervention & Community Resilience

·  Optimising the Social Care Front Door

·  Social Care Processes and Interventions

·  Reablement

·  Community Mental Health Services Framework

·  Transitions

·  Redesign Liquid Logic

The Director of Adult Social Care said that work on the Plan began in the Summer of 2021 and elements had already begun to change due to new directives that are being / will be introduced.

She explained that work was ongoing across the service in terms of the Care Bill and Integrated Care System.

She said that the financial reforms will inevitably change their approach further as there will be areas of work that require a particular level of focus. She added that this was in addition to a new assessment framework being introduced by the CQC (Care Quality Commission).

She stated that the biggest area of focus would be on Transitions, in particular young people aged between 14-25, to be able to give them a good journey through this period of their life. She added that this would mean working with the individuals, their families and schools as much as possible.

She said that a robust 3^rd sector provision was in place and that the Council works very closely with them alongside HCRG.

She recommended that the Panel at some point receives a presentation on the new Mental Health Framework provision that is available. She added that workforce was also an issue in this area and the challenge therefore to have the right people in the right place.

She said that there was an intermediate care focus to reablement through the use of physiotherapists and occupational therapists and that the intention is to increase patient flow through this area where possible.

She said that she felt that a good start had been made but it was acknowledged that there was plenty of work still to do.

The Chairman said that he felt that it was not a comfortable position to be in having to find savings of £4m over the next three years alongside the changes that have been outlined.

Councillor Liz Hardman asked how the savings will be achieved, if at all, given that the report highlights rising care costs and social care reforms.

The Director of Adult Social Care replied that a three-year financial strategy had been agreed in November 2021 and that they have worked very hard to make sure that people are not adversely  ...  view the full minutes text for item 104