Agenda item

To receive verbal updates from the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and the Corporate Director of Adult Social Care and Health.

1.            Before starting his verbal updates, the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care, Mr Gibbens, welcomed Ms Anu Singh to her first meeting of the Cabinet Committee since her appointment as the Corporate Director of Adult Social Care and Health. Mr Gibbens then gave a verbal update on the following issues:-

Independent Living Scheme – this service, for adults with learning disabilities, was changing its focus to children and adults with the most complex needs, and was no longer a service which would be delivered by the County Council.  Consultation on the proposed changes was planned to run from 20 September to 19 October but had been extended to 2 November, and a recommendation report would be made to the Cabinet Committee on 23 November 2017. Ms Southern offered a briefing to any Member who wished one. 

Older Persons’ Core Offer – a report on this was made to the Cabinet Committee in July but a decision on it had been delayed until after a series of meetings with providers to discuss issues of concern to voluntary organisations. A key decision was expected to be taken in December.  If any significant change were to be made to the funding arrangements after this time, further consultation would be undertaken.

Local Government Association – Mr Gibbens had been reappointed to the Community Wellbeing Board, which had been addressed at a recent meeting by Jackie Doyle-Price, MP. Major areas of concern at that meeting had been delayed transfers of care, independent living and supporting people with learning disabilities to get back into work.

Key Decision taken on Housing-Related Support – since the July meeting, he had taken a key decision to work with providers to explore and secure alternative funding models for housing-related support for community alarms in sheltered housing.

2.            The Corporate Director of Adult Social Care and Health, Ms A Singh, outlined her previous 20 years’ experience in local government and with NHS England, and said that she was pleased to be back in local government.   She then gave an update on the following issues:-

Delayed Discharge of Care – it was estimated that 2,500 people in the UK were in hospital but should be placed elsewhere. Hospital beds occupied by these people prevented others being admitted to hospital for procedures, resulted in much additional cost for the NHS and led to accident and emergency targets being breached.  Delayed discharges of care could be health-related or social care-related, with social care causing the fewest delays.  

Sustainability Transformation Plan update – the 44 Sustainability Transformation Plans in England had become Sustainability Transformation Partnerships earlier in 2017 and were now working on their plans for the next five years, including setting their Sustainability Transformation Strategies. Part of this forward planning was to lobby for some of the funding previously directed to acute care to be redirected to local care and primary care, and a case would need to be made for this investment. Work on this direction was taking place in eight testbed sites and the results of this would be seen in November.

Safeguarding Awareness– Safeguarding Awareness Week was 9 to 13 October and a briefing on a number of events taking place would be circulated to Members later.  Part of the message of this week was that safeguarding was everybody’s responsibility, and a campaign, ‘Respect not Neglect’ had been launched.  Abuse could take many forms, including neglect, domestic violence, financial abuse and modern slavery.  

3.            Ms Singh responded to comments and questions from Members, including the following:-

a)    attracting staff to work in health and social care roles, as well as social work, was an ongoing problem.  Formerly, auxilliary nursing staff would have undertaken care and support tasks to cover night shifts but this did not seem to happen now. Ms Singh advised that, in order to address this, it was necessary first to understand the problem. Kent was a large and diverse county in terms of income and qualifications, and solutions to attract staffing would need to be tailored to the circumstances in different areas. Work was starting with Health Education England and discussions taking place with local colleges to attract students and graduates to the profession;

b)    work on raising awareness of adult safeguarding was welcomed.  Asked what percentage of adult social care funding was spent on prevention, Ms Singh undertook to look into this and advise the speaker outside the meeting; and

c)    Sustainability Transformation Plans in some areas of the country were more advanced in their development than Kent’s as they had been in preparation for longer.  Examples of longer-standing Sustainability Transformation Plans were in Manchester and Somerset, the latter being a good example of a history of integrated practice and use of systems such as EMIS. Integration of social care data would allow people with multiple needs to be identified and treated more efficiently.

4.            RESOLVED that the verbal updates be noted, with thanks.