Agenda item
Cabinet Member Update
The Cabinet Member will update the Select Committee on any relevant issues. Select Committee members may ask questions on the update provided.
Minutes:
Councillor Vic Pritchard, Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care & Health addressed the Select Committee. A copy of the update can be found on their Minute Book and as an online appendix to these minutes, a summary of the update is set out below.
Hospital to Care Home Learning Workshop
A Hospital to Care Home learning workshop was held on 21st September and included over 40 colleagues from across the Council, Clinical Commissioning Group, RUH, Sirona, care homes and Healthwatch. The purpose of the event was to share issues between care homes and hospitals, to learn about each other’s roles and situations and understand how to improve discharges to care homes from hospital.
Actions from the day are being taken forward by a new action group – the Hospital to Care Home Group, which includes representatives from the above organisations and a 6 month plan has been created.
Learning Disability Government Funding
The Council has been successful in bidding £456,800 of Government funding to improve independence for people with learning disabilities. In September, the Department of Health announced that funding would be made available to help people with learning disabilities to live independently by creating a range of housing and technology options.
The fund will enable us to develop the use of Assistive technology through a range of applications, predominantly electronic equipment, used to monitor or enable people with learning disabilities, thus increasing their independence and improving their quality of life.
The funding will also support a number of people with learning disabilities to own their own homes using a unique Government approved shared ownership model known as HOLD (home ownership for people with long term disabilities).
The plans will be delivered in partnership with a range of bid partners, including West of England Care and Repair, Advance Housing and CURO.
Your Care Your Way Update
The primary aim of this stage of the project is to ensure the safe transfer of community health and care services and have no disruption for people who use services. Significant progress has also been made towards finalising the Prime Provider Contract with Virgin Care and the final draft is expected to be available for signature by the end of February.
The 3 year transformation project will begin in earnest after the first 100 days of the contract, however transformation plans that we have developed will be included in provider contracts to signal the direction of travel of the services. This is why there is no intention to ask providers of community health and care services being delivered under a sub-contract with Virgin Care to make any large changes to their service from April 1st. Associated funding will remain in line with current provision.
The Council and CCG have now agreed an approach with Virgin Care as Prime Provider to managing the day-to-day commissioning and contracting of services which will provide the maximum benefit for the population of Bath and North East Somerset.
Councillor Dine Romero asked how the commissioning and contracting of services would be scrutinised.
The Director for Integrated Health & Care Commissioning replied that officers are happy to bring regular Your Care, Your Way updates to the Select Committee and that representatives from Virgin Care are willing to attend. She added that Senior Commissioning Managers will scrutinise sub-contracting arrangements to ensure there are no interruptions in service.
The Chair thanked him for his update on behalf of the Select Committee.