Agenda item

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

Adult Social Care

(1)       Mr Gibbens said he had taken key decisions as follows:

14/00135 – Charging for Adult Care and Support

14/00136 – Deferred Payments and Temporary Financial Assistance

(2)       He then provided an answer to a question about Troubled Families and mental health issues that Ms Cribbon had asked at the Council meeting on 12 February.  He said that any young person referred to the Children and Young Persons’ Mental Health Services was seen on the basis of clinical need regardless of their status as a looked after child or as a participant in the Troubled Families programme.  Kent County Council also commissioned a specialist children in care team who worked within the Sussex Partnership Trust providing specific support for looked after children which was separate from the core mental health element of the service commissioned by the clinical commissioning groups.

(3)       Mr Gibbens said there were a range of services available to adults who were part of the Troubled Families programme including psychological therapies commissioned by the clinical commissioning groups and details were available on the Live it Well website.

(4)       Mr Gibbens also said that Kent County Council and the clinical commissioning groups were developing a new model of support for individuals with wellbeing and mental health needs and this would re-shape services to meet increasing demand, re-balance investment and ensure consistent support across Kent through a range of providers from the voluntary and statutory sectors.  A consultation with the public to inform the new model was about to start and it was anticipated that the new model would be in place from April 2016.

Events

(5)       Mr Gibbens said he had spoken at the Combatting Loneliness & Isolation Conference in London on 20 January and at the Social Care Forum in London on 5 February as well as attending the Melbourne Avenue PFI Scheme Cutting Ceremony in Ramsgate on 27 January and hosting the Kent Age UK Chairs’ Annual Meeting on 24 February.

(6)       Mr Ireland then gave an update on delayed transfers from hospital which had been discussed at the last meeting of the committee. He said there was still considerable pressure in hospitals in Kent and the pressure varied from week to week.  NHS England had acknowledged that Kent was doing well compared with other areas.  He also said that £0.5m additional funding had been allocated to Kent by the Department of Health which was being used to enable people to be discharged quickly to their own homes following an admission to hospital.

(7)       Mr Ireland said the national publicity campaign about changes as a result of the Care Act 2014 was underway and this would be supplemented by local actions.  He referred to the extensive training programme for staff to ensure the authority was ready for 1 April and said that there was unlikely to be an explosion of activity on day 1 of the new regime.

(8)       In response to questions, Mr Ireland confirmed that, if demand for assessments was as predicted, there would be sufficient trained and qualified staff and Mrs Tidmarsh said that about 25% of assessments would be conducted by the voluntary sector with the balance being done in-house.

(9)       Officers also said that external trainers had been used to train social care and legal staff; the Integrated Discharge team model that was very successful at the Darent Valley Hospital had been implemented in East Kent, integrated  teams around GP Practices were being rolled out across Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) areas and that contractual arrangements were in place to ensure consistency in the conduct of Carer’s assessments by the  voluntary sector which would be supplemented by random quality checks.

Public Health

(10)     Mr Gibbens said he had taken three decisions relating to Public Health and they were:

14/00146 – Contract Extension for Kent Community Health Trust – Smoking Cessation Service

14/00147 – Contract Extension for Kent Community Health Trust – Health Trainers Service

14/00148 - Contract Extension for Kent Community Health Trust – Healthy Weight Service

(11)     Mr Gibbens said he had attended the LGA Annual Public Health Conference on 11 February.  He said the key points made by Simon Stevens (Chief Executive - NHS England were that: local authorities had a key role to play in ensuring the best start in life for all children; the NHS spent £3bn annually treating smoking related illness;  the cost of alcohol misuse and its impact on families needed to be addressed; and that local authorities were well placed to work with clinical commissioning groups and health and wellbeing boards to undertake preventative work that would have a positive impact on the  health of the nation.

(12)     Mr Gibbens said Duncan Selbie (Chief Executive - Public Health England) spoke about the role of local authorities in ensuring every child had the best start to life, the role of education which also had an impact on health and the need for local authorities to work across directorates to avoid unnecessary admissions of older people to hospital and to reduce health inequalities.

(13)     He concluded by saying Jess Mookherjee, Assistant Director of Public Health at KCC) had impressed delegates with her keynote speech and that the slides were available on request.

(14)     In response to comment about the message sent to residents when they were being given health advice by elected Members who were themselves overweight or obese, Mr Gibbens said he would encourage Members to lead by example, and to have a health check.  He also said that it was predicted that by 2050 obesity would be the largest single killer and the biggest single cost to the NHS.  He suggested that the cabinet committee might wish to consider this in more detail at a future meeting.

(15)     Mr Scott-Clark said there was not a single solution for obesity and a range of initiatives and activities through the various stages of life were required.  He also referred to the opportunities created by the new arrangements for the health visiting services and the ageing well programme.

(16) Mr Scott-Clark said the Thanet Aspiration Healthy Living Centre had been opened which was the fifth in the county along with three virtual centres.  He said the health improvement teams would work closely with these centres as well as the centres outreaching to local communities.  Funding for the Thanet Centre was in partnership with Aspire, Global Generation and Orbit South Housing and the centre was working with East Kent College.

(11)     The verbal updates were noted.