Agenda item

The Cabinet Member will update the Select Committee on any relevant issues. Select Committee members may ask questions on the update provided.

Councillor Vic Pritchard, Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care & Health addressed the Panel, a summary is set out below.

Wellbeing House

The Wellbeing House provides a 3-bedded retreat, a place of sanctuary, for people experiencing mental health distress where they can receive low level social support to help them stabilise themselves and prevent a crisis escalating into secondary care. The service is being delivered by Sirona Care & Health in conjunction with Curo Group. The Wellbeing House is now full every week and Sirona continue to receive positive feedback from its service users.

He said that he had recently visited the Wellbeing House and had met the manager and a service user, both of them commenting on how wonderful it was to have such a service locally.

Strengthening Adult Social Care

The Care Act 2014 is now a year old, having come in to force on April 1st 2015.

During the last two months, staff from the Council’s adult commissioning team have joined with practitioners from Avon & Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust (AWP) and Sirona Care &Health to consider how the support we provide to people can be further developed to: 

• Emphasise individual abilities rather than focus on what cannot be achieved, and
• Recognise a person’s support network and promote their wellbeing. 

The sharing of good practice is at the heart of the challenge the Care Act sets us and all partners are committed to responding to this challenge. A regular newsletter has been developed to share details of service developments, national requirements and local good practice. The newsletter reminds staff of how the work they do every day with people in our communities contributes to the performance of the Council in key areas including financial accountability, the provision of information and advice and the development of the social care “market”.

Accessible Information Standard (AIS)

The AIS is a new standard that comes into force in July 2016. It aims to ensure that disabled patients and service users receive information in formats that they can understand and have appropriate support to help them to communicate.

The standard will apply to people that have a disability, impairment or sensory loss (including their carers or parents) and will cover all information that is needed for a person to access, understand and use health and social care services, making sure that they get information in the format they need (i.e. large print, braille, audio, easy read British Sign Language interpreter, deafblind manual interpreter or advocate).

By 31 July 2016 all relevant organisations must have fully conformed to the AIS by law under section 250 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012. The AIS is also in line with the Equality Act 2010, the Care Act 2014, the NHS Constitution and the Equality Delivery System.

Councillor Paul May said that he valued and supported the work of the Wellbeing House.

Councillor Lin Patterson asked if funding would be available to bring into use the other two rooms within the Wellbeing House.

The Director of Adult Care and Health Commissioning replied that officers would need to assess if there were any flexibility in funding via the Better Care Fund or whether it can form part of the financial plan for next year. She added that good outcomes were being achieved currently from the Wellbeing House.

Councillor Vic Pritchard commented that preventative measures such as this are to be supported.

Councillor Bryan Organ said that he was pleased to see Sirona Care & Health and Curo working well together on this project.

The Chair thanked Councillor Pritchard for his update on behalf of the Panel.