Agenda item

(15 minutes)

To update the Board on the Adult Social Care Discharge Grant.

Gary Guest/Judith Westcott

Gary Guest, Commissioning Project and Programme Manager, B&NES updated the Board on the Adult Social Care Discharge Grant as follows:

Adult Social Care Discharge Fund Re-Cap:

·  Delays to discharging people from hospital when they are fit to leave continue to be a significant issue. Not only does this mean fewer hospital beds available for those who need them; it also means people who would be better off recovering at home or in residential care are instead spending too long in hospital.

·  Bath and North East Somerset Council was attributed £2,134,276, and a range of schemes were submitted to outline the projects that will be awarded the funding to help support accelerated discharge from hospital.

·  Following consultation across the ICS, building upon our on–going strategic intentions and aspirations, and responding to current pressures, we now have an agreed and submitted set of schemes for B&NES ICA and BSW ICS funded from the Adult Social Care Discharge Fund.

·  We are now pro-actively implementing these schemes with support from all partners.

·  Reporting of activity as a result of this funding is mandatory on a fortnightly

·  basis, from 6th January 2023, reporting on:

o  Number of discharges from hospital by service in the 14 days prior to submission.

o  Packages of care booked or in use for all local authority funded social care in the 14 days prior to submission.

o  Adult Social Care Discharge Fund total spend to date, broken down by

§  Spend from the ICB allocation

§  Spend from the Local Authority Allocation.

B&NES Schemes: £2,190,696

·  Assistive Technology - £190,000

·  Big packages of care with therapeutic and coordination of support escalation - £300,000

·  Care Act Assessments - £160,000

·  Flow Co-ordination - £139,000

·  Mental Health Case Coordination – £40,000

·  Third Sector Support – £105,000

·  Individual Hospital payments – £62,500

·  Additional care home beds and GPs to cover – £772,114

·  Additional home care with support – £422,082

The Board raised the following comments:

1.  Cllr Alison Born welcomed the range of initiatives but expressed frustration at the limited timescale.

2.  Suzanne Westhead confirmed that there were already improvements with 30 delays reported on the previous day compared with the average of 70 before the schemes were in place.  However, she advised that as the money was not recurrent and had to be spent by the end of March, it was not sustainable to continue beyond the funded period. 

3.  Laura Ambler confirmed that there was a need to move quickly to secure alternative funding, but that the reporting mechanism would be useful to identify which schemes gave the best return on investment to give a viable alternative to bedded care.

4.  Kate Morton agreed with the need for more sustainable funding and stated for the third sector and those providing community provision as an alternative to bedded care.

5.  Paul Harris stated that non bedded care alternatives should be the long-term aim but asked if step down units would be used as an interim solution.  Laura Ambler responded that it was important that step down units were used for the right people.