Agenda item

To receive a verbal update from the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health, the Corporate Director for Social Care, Health and Wellbeing and the Acting Director of Public Health.

Adult Social Care

1.            Mr Gibbens gave a verbal update on the following issues:-

A number of key decisions had been taken since the final meeting of the former Social Care and Public Health Cabinet Committee in January 2014, which were listed in a report for Members’ information at the end of the agenda pack. He highlighted the following three issues:-

Home Care Contract Award – this was a significant area of work for the County Council.  The number of providers had been much reduced, which would give the County Council more scope for control and supervision.

Proposed revision of rates payable and charges levied for adult services in 2014/15  

Swanley Learning Disability Day Service – this was a good news story, and service users were happy with the new services.

6 February attended ‘Time to Change’ event at the Angel Centre in Tonbridge (‘Time to Change’ pledge) – this campaign aimed to reduce stigma around mental health issues. It was known that one in four adults in the UK would experience some kind of mental illness at some point in their lifetime.

17 February Kent Older People’s Senior Forum at Sessions House

11 March attended LGA Health & Social Care Integration in the South East Conference in London

2.            Mr Gibbens, Mr Lobban and Mr Ireland responded to comments and questions from Members, as follows:-

a.     the effect upon care workers of the home care contract award would be beneficial as it would allow visits to clients to be organised on a more sensible, geographical basis, thus reducing care workers’ travel time and  allowing them more time to spend with each client;

b.     engaging with a smaller number of providers would allow better monitoring and make it easier to forecast and deal with any issues before they became problems;

c.      all providers with whom the County Council contracted for home care services had an office in Kent and employed local people, although some were larger national organisations with a branch in Kent;

d.     the tendering and selection process was rigorous and was run by the County Council’s procurement team. An external organisation called Neuven was engaged to undertake an audit of all potential providers at the stage at which they expressed an interest;

e.     previously, the County Council had not been allowed to take past contractual performance into account when assessing the suitability of potential contractors. However, procurement legislation had since changed to allow local authorities to take into account past performance;

f.       the County Council could not have taken account of the most recent Care Quality Commission (CQC) reports when assessing contractors, as some contractors had not been inspected by CQC since 2012, making it impossible to compare potential providers on a like-for-like basis. The benefit of the audits by Neuven was that all were undertaken recently within the same, short timescale, and each bidder was assessed against the same data set; and

g.     Mr Gibbens emphasised that he would always prefer that issues such as those listed above should come to the Committee for discussion. He pointed out that it was only the larger than usual gap between meetings and the need for arrangements to be made by the end of the financial year that had necessitated the decisions listed being taken between meetings.