There are currently proposals to reduce the number of social workers working in Adult social care at a time when it is widely acknowledged amongst professionals and politicians that there is a national crisis in Adult Social Care provision. In this context, the Prime Minister has recently stated that the outcome of the general election has motivated her to seek greater political consensus on how to resolve the Social Care crisis.
In keeping with the renewed spirit of consensus, does the Portfolio Holder agree with me that Medway Council should also refresh our approach, seek political consensus here and instead of continuing to cut services and staff, consider how to increase resourcing of Adult Social Care and by doing so ensure that our service users and their relatives can be confident about receiving an improved service?
Minutes:
“There are currently proposals to reduce the number of social workers working in Adult social care at a time when it is widely acknowledged amongst professionals and politicians that there is a national crisis in Adult Social Care provision. In this context, the Prime Minister has recently stated that the outcome of the general election has motivated her to seek greater political consensus on how to resolve the Social Care crisis.
In keeping with the renewed spirit of consensus, does the Portfolio Holder agree with me that Medway Council should also refresh our approach, seek political consensus here and instead of continuing to cut services and staff, consider how to increase resourcing of Adult Social Care and by doing so ensure that our service users and their relatives can be confident about receiving an improved service?”
Councillor Brake stated he totally agreed with Councillor Murray in that it was time to refresh the approach in Adult Social Care. With the implementation of the Care Act, the rising demands for services and increasing public expectations the Council could not stand still. The current service was performing to a good standards and he highlighted recent successes:
· Consecutive weeks with no delayed discharges from Medway Hospital, this meant the Council was amongst the best performing Councils in the South East;
· The number of people on self-directed support was rising;
· The number of people in residential care was reducing.
He stated that this showed that the Council was promoting independence and choice, but it was recognised that the Council could do more.
He stated that the Council had been running an innovation site to test new approaches to how the Council could engage with people over a 13 week period across post codes ME4 and ME5. There had been conversations with 388 people. The Council had supported 29 people who were in a crisis and out of the 388 only 19 went on to need long term support.100% of people had said they were satisfied with their outcomes and in addition this had resulted in cost avoidance savings of £188,000 over the 13 week period.
He further stated that people’s lives did not stop at 5pm on Friday, unlike the Council’s current services. He stated that not only did the Council plan to roll this approach out across Adult Social Care, the Council would be doing this in addition to increasing service availability across seven days per week. Increasing opportunities for all people requiring support, stopping the current silo approach to people based on their age and disability meant that someone could be assessed by three different people to meet their needs.
He stated that this new approach was that one person would take a holistic approach to meeting the whole of a person’s needs, therefore, reducing hand offs. It also provided staff with increased opportunities for development through joint working in localities and had the potential of full year savings of £650,000, which would make a total saving for 2017/2018 of £838,000.
He concluded by stating that the Council was not cutting services but was improving its response to individuals, delivering better outcomes for people and improving opportunities for staff, and delivering efficiencies moving from good to great.