Agenda item

Sue Gratton, Joint Planning and Development Manager, Learning Disability Service, Eastern & Coastal Kent PCT will be in attendance for this item.

(Item 4 - Report by Sue Gratton, Joint Planning & Development Manager, Learning Disability Services, Eastern & Coastal Kent PCT).  Also in attendance were Margaret Howard, Director of Commissioning and Provision - West Kent, Kent County Council, Lynne Selman, Director of Citizen Engagement and Communications, Eastern & Coastal Kent PCT and Julia Ross, Director of Civic Engagement, West Kent PC.

(1)       The White Papers “Valuing People” and “Our Health, Our Care, Our Say” made it clear that people with learning disabilities should enjoy the same rights as other citizens and should no longer have to live within the National Health Service.  The latter White Paper includes a deadline of 2010 by which the National Health Service should stop providing long-term residential support.  Recent reports of the Health Care Commission in Cornwall and in Merton and Sutton in Surrey highlighted the deficiencies of the National Health Service residential support which had led to a national audit of all such services.

(2)       A commissioning plan had been developed setting out a programme to transfer the support currently provided by the National Health Service across Kent to independent providers with a development path to create a wider range of housing and support officers to meet peoples person centred plans.  This plan aims to be consistent with the wider strategy in Kent to reduce the reliance on residential care.

(3)       Members asked a range of questions relating to the proposals for the formal consultation which was about to start.  The Committee expressed concern that they had not had an opportunity to see the communication plan which was not attached to the report as the report indicated setting how the Primary Care Trusts and the Project Team intend to capture all stakeholders views.

(4)       The Committee also noted that the Department of Health had recently advised that £175m of capital was to be made available over the next three years to assist the NHS campus closure programme across England.

(5)       The Project Team were currently working on a bid for some capital finance to take the programme forward across Kent.

(6)       The Committee were unanimous that it is important that the aims of the review were fully achieved to:-

            (a)       meet the aims of valuing people with learning disabilities so that it was:-

-           Person focussed

-           Choice and control

-           Support independence

-           Inclusion and fulfilling lives

(b)       transfer support out of NHS provision/NHS managed services

(c)        base resources on needs

(d)       reduce reliance on residential care and increase support

(e)       develop and diversify market

(f)         be consistent with and enable Kent County Council strategy of reducing reliance on residential care in Kent

(g)       carry out the programme of work in partnership with all interested partners

(h)        transfer commissioning to Kent County Council; and

(i)         be cost neutral to the Primary Care Trusts and Kent County Council for the resultant provision.

RESOLVED that the spokesman on the Committee consider how it should respond to the formal consultation process which was about to commence.