Agenda item

(Report by Mr G Gibbens, Cabinet Member, Adult Social Services and Mr O Mills, Managing Director, Kent Adult Social Services)

(Mrs P Huntingford, Transforming Social Care Lead Officer was present for this item)

(1)         The Committee considered a report on the level of abandoned calls experienced at Kent Contact & Assessment Service (KCAS) and the measures that were in place to mitigate this.

(2)         Mrs Huntingford introduced the report highlighting the key issues.

(3)         Members were given the opportunity to ask questions and make comments which included the following:

(4)         In reply to a question by Mr Craske, Mrs Huntingford explained what an abandoned call was saying; the panel in front of the telephonist told them how many calls were waiting and how many callers put their phone down.  The system records the speed at which that abandoned call took place. So as well as having the weekly data of the number of calls, at which the percentage was arrived from, the pace at which people choose to abandon a call, over time, as this was a new system, would be possible to track, whether there were certain points in the day when the calls were abandoned quicker and where the peaks and troughs in those calls coming in were. She added that 15% of calls were abandoned in 45-50 seconds.  The system was not sophisticated enough to identify whether they were repeat callers.  Intuitively when there were calls from Kent operational teams, colleagues from the Primary Care Trusts and General Practitioners it was likely that they would not hang on the phone if they did not get an immediate response to move on to do something else and try later.

(5)         In response to a follow up question, Mrs Huntingford said that there was a wish from Members for there to be a single point of access for as many of the County Council’s callers as possible and the Children, Families and Education  Directorate to feel that this was right where it was appropriate for them to take on certain responsibilities.  As part of the review there would be some close debate and scrutiny on which circumstance it would be appropriate for Contact Kent to deal with and which may be left to more highly trained specialist in service directorates to deal with.  There was a programme of training to up skill staff in Contact Kent so that they were better able to respond to the lower level of enquiry about information and advise about a service’s activity, there were calls that were passed to KCAS that had nothing to do with either Children and Families or Adults Social Services.

(6)         In response to a comment by Mr Robinson, Mrs Huntingford confirmed that the Social Care Reform Grant of £144k would not be available from April 2011 and there was no expectation that the Department of Health would make any more funding available even though most adult services across the country had not achieved the changes that were required under the new ‘Putting People First Agenda’. Kent had been at the forefront of those changes and was confident that it would meet all the milestones but there were concerns as to how the services that had enabled it to do that were being currently funded from within the Reform Grant were going to be sustained beyond April 2011.  For this to be sustainable the funding would have to be taken from the base budgets in the longer term unless a more efficient way can be found to continue the service especially in the current economic climate. Mr Robinson requested that the CFE Budget IMG be kept appraised on this matter.

(7)         In response to a comment by Mr Brookbank, Mrs Huntingford said that the demand increased year on year so even if you removed the call from the CFE Directorate the external demand increases you would not necessarily be making a saving because there was a need to resource meeting that increasing demand. She mentioned the growing impact of the closure of the reception points which meant that those calls went elsewhere either to Contact Kent or KCAS.  The primary objective was to lower the abandoned call rate.

(8)         The Chairman requested an aid Memoire for Members to indicate where they should direct enquiries for their local community.

(9)         RESOLVED that:

(a)         the CFE Budget IMG be kept appraised on the impact of losing the  Social Care Reform Grant;

(b)         an aid Memoire for Members indicating Key contact points be set up; and

(c)         the comments and the responses to questions by Members be noted.