Issue - meetings

This report provides an update on the national legislative, policy and regulatory context that the Adult Social Care service currently operates in. It also describes key strategic activity taking place in 2022/23, alongside an overview of finance, performance and risks based on delivery in quarter four of 2021/22.

The Assistant Director for Integrated Commissioning introduced the report to the Panel and highlighted the following areas from within it.

The national picture

The Health and Care Act received royal ascent on 3rd May 2022 and laid down legislative foundations for an ambitious programme of national reform of Adult Social Care.

The Build Back Better programme aims to create a sustainable adult social care system that is fit for the future. It introduces new charging reforms for people who use social care and brings new statutory duties for local authorities. The programme has entered first phase of implementation, which means we will need more social workers, more financial assessors, and a new system to help ensure we support more people financially from April 2023.

Liberty Protection Safeguards (LPS) – a framework that will replace the Deprivation of Liberty (DoLs) – has now finished its parliamentary journey. Liberty Protection Safeguards will apply to everyone from the age of 16 years. While DoLs applies only to people in care homes and hospital, LPS will apply to people in supported accommodation, shared lives, and their own homes. New code of practice is currently out for public consultation until 4th July 2022. Government confirmed its intention to set a new fixed date for Liberty Protection Safeguards implementation post consultation to ensure that there is adequate time for implementation.

New Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection regime for Adult Social Care (also referred to as Assurance framework) is expected to mirror the Ofsted inspection process and will begin in April 2023. The Adult Social Care Outcomes Framework that is being currently used to measure and compare performance of local authorities has been refreshed and is expected to be implemented alongside the new assurance framework. This means that we would need to have new performance management systems in place, with greater use of Business Intelligence tools, and develop more mature capability to evaluate customer experience, and evidence outcomes and impact at an individual, locality and system level.

The local picture

Health and Social Care Integration to join up care for people, place and population is continuing at pace nationally and locally. On 1st July 2022, the Banes, Swindon, and Wiltshire (BSW) CCG will be subsumed into the BSW Integrated Care System.

Recruitment to senior leadership posts in the new system is well advanced, with anew team of senior leaders joining over the next two months. New governance

arrangements, such as the Integrated Care Board and the Integrated Care Alliance are beginning to take shape, with system partners frequently coming together to collaborate to develop new ways of working at place and population level.

Our close working with the NHS and our wider community partners ensures we

continue to promote, maintain, and enhance people’s wellbeing and independence so that they are healthier, stronger, more resilient, and less reliant in the future on formal social care services. Doing this is better for people in terms of their longer-term outcomes and better for B&NES Council to help make funding  ...  view the full minutes text for item 24