Issue - meetings

To receive a report from the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and the Corporate Director of Adult Social Care and Health and to consider and either endorse or make a recommendation to the Cabinet Member on the proposed decision to commission jointly an integrated service with NHS England.

Ms E Hanson, Head of Strategic Commissioning, Community Services, and Ms S Peacock, Commissioning Officer, were in attendance for this item.

1.            Ms Hanson said that the committee Chairman and the Cabinet Member had visited the prison with Ms Peacock to see first-hand the growing issue of the ageing population. When the Care Act 2014 was put in place the local authority took over responsibility from the NHS for providing social care in prisons at a time when the NHS was mid-way through the contract with Primary Health Care. Instead of commissioning a new service, the local authority bought the service from the Primary Health Care provider. At the point at which the NHS recommissioned the primary health care service in prisons, the local authority worked with them to ensure there was an integrated primary health and social care service.

2.            Ms Hanson said that a Section.75 agreement would be drawn up to underpin the co-commissioning arrangement, with NHS England as the lead commissioner and contracting authority.

3.            A Member asked a question about the number of referrals and why that was not deemed to be a true representation of the demand within the prisons. Ms Peacock said that prison governors were unaware of the full extent of social care interventions available to prisoners and therefore had initially restricted referrals to equipment only, such as the delivery of wheelchairs. The County Council has raised prison governors’ awareness of social care issues and reaffirmed the use of peer support.

4.            RESOLVED that the decision proposed to be taken by the Cabinet Member to:-

(a)  jointly commission an integrated health and social care service with NHS England; and

(b)  delegate authority to the Corporate Director of Adult Social Care and Health, or other nominated officer, to undertake the necessary actions to implement the decision,

be endorsed.