Issue - meetings

The Director of Adult Social Care introduced the report to the Panel.

She began by explaining some of recent funding decisions that had been announced. She said that in December £50m had been allocated nationally to allow for international recruitment to take place and that B&NES was still awaiting its precise allocation.

She stated that a Discharge Grant of £0.6m had also been announced in December specifically for B&NES and that the ICB had also received the same grant for £1m to help with local services.

She added that on 16^th January it had been announced that £200m had been allocated nationally for work to help with hospital discharges and that this would be allocated through the ICB.

She stated that Discharge Grant had already been used for work in the Care Coordination Centre, to buy further domiciliary care and to buy more beds in the community and that this had already helped to improve the flow of patients both in and out of the RUH.

She informed the Panel that she had last week met with ministers for Social Care and Local Government to discuss the challenges and good work going on within B&NES. She added that there is an interest nationally around hospital demand and what social care can do to support that demand. She said that she anticipated that further meetings of this nature will take place in the future.

She stated that the current forecast financial position for Adult Social Care was to break even as the underlying variances will be covered by a transfer from the Adult Social Care Reserve fund.

She addressed the Panel regarding the Community Resource Centres (CRCs). She explained that the Council runs 9 in house services consisting of 3 Care Homes (1 with nursing), 5 Extra Care schemes and a home care agency (United Care BANES – UCB). She said that due to the national shortage of staff in the care sector, these services remain reliant on a high use of agency staff.

The 5 Extra Care services have been inspected and all have a rating of good from the CQC.

She said that the provision of care within the 3 Care Homes was the thing that concerns her most within her role. She stated that it was the team within the Council that identified the safeguarding concerns at Charlton House to the CQC in October following initial concerns having arisen over the summer and having brought in additional clinical leadership and managerial staff to attempt to improve the quality of care.

She said that over the past couple of months that Council staff have been working continuously with the team at Charlton House to make improvements. She informed the Panel that they have recently secured a Senior Nurse from the RUH to work there and that a new registered manager was also now in place. She added that action plans were now in place and that wrap around support was in place from the Corporate  ...  view the full minutes text for item 74