Issue - meetings

(1)       The Chairman emphasised that an annual report on progress towards the ‘Towards 2010’ targets, and a chance to comment on it, gave the POC a key chance to influence the development of policy making.

(2)       The Cabinet Member, Mr K G Lynes, introduced the report and said that he had fought hard to highlight the Directorate’s key aspirations and identify targets which would be most helpful in achieving them.  He said how proud he was of KASS officers and the reputation Kent had for excellence and its innovative approach to service provision, promoting TeleHealth, Telecare, Direct Payments, etc.  The Directorate was always short of resources and funding and was facing a number of ongoing pressures from demographic changes and the changing needs of the aged and those with physical and learning disabilities.

(3)       Mr Lynes and the officer team answered questions and responded to concerns put to them by Members on each of the five targets, which, Mr Mills emphasised, were interdependent.  Comments made by Members, and clarifications, where given by Mr Lynes and officers in response to Members’ questions, were as follows.  Clarifications are in italics.

General Points

 (a)      The report setting out the background of, and progress towards, each of the targets is excellent, very clearly laid out and easy to follow.

Target 52

(b)       Equipment needs to be ready and available to accommodate the expansion of TeleHealth and Telecare, especially now a much bigger expansion is planned following Kent’s successful £4.8m bid in partnership with both Eastern and Coastal and West Kent PCTs for the Whole System Demonstrator (WSD).  The number of Telecare installations, at July 2007, was 750 and the number of TeleHealth, at September 2007, was 247.  WSD money would extend Telecare by 1,500 and TeleHealth by 1,000.  The 2010 target had been set before the outcome of the WSD bid was known. 

(c)        The NHS needs to continue an active role in expanding the use of Telecare and TeleHealth, to match the efforts being put in by KASS.  How can we ensure full involvement of the NHS in this and other preventative work?  The relationship between KASS and the NHS is more effective now and joint working is excellent.  PCTs have huge financial issues but we believe they are doing as much as they can.

(d)       We need to be sure that we will obtain maximum value from the WSD money by using the appropriate tender process.  The £4.8m WSD money is specific, ring-fenced Government money which can only be used for this programme..

(e)       We need to be able to identify demographic trends and plan well ahead to meet them.  Extensive work has been undertaken on demographic predictions for the next 20 years and Kent is good at forward planning in response to these.

(f)         We need to press for an increase in the building of Lifetime homes to avoid the need for future adaptations for the elderly and physically disabled.  How can  ...  view the full minutes text for item 31