Issue - meetings

Report ACH22-022

The Committee considered a report providing a refresh of the Adult Care and Health Portfolio Plan for 2022-23, and the update for Quarter 4 of the 2021-22 Portfolio Plan.

The Adult Care and Health Portfolio Plan was refreshed each year in line with the Council’s Transformation Programme and the Corporate Strategy ‘Making Bromley Even Better’. Within each priority were a number of statements which were underpinned by actions and measures of success within the work of Adult Care and Health Services.

Progress in the final quarter of 2021/22 had been made on the majority of the actions within the Portfolio Plan: The impact of COVID-19 had seen new ways of working in partnership with health partners and these positive changes continued to be incorporated into ways of working and future plans. The planned re-commissioning of services was delayed in some instances and were now on track to meet these changes.

The Portfolio Plan 2022-23 focused on two of the ambitions from Making Bromley Even Better:

-  Ambition 2 - For adults and older people to enjoy fulfilled and successful lives in Bromley, ageing well, retaining independence and making choices; and,

-  Ambition 5 - To manage our resources well, providing value for money, and efficient and effective services for Bromley’s residents.

A Member asked for further information regarding the retendering of domiciliary care services contributing to the Council’s financial efficiency targets. The Head of Service for Community Living Commissioning advised that a tendering process had been completed in October 2021 with an underpinning theme of transforming how people received domiciliary care and helping them to live more independently. A trusted assessor approach would be applied in the future to ensure service users changing needs were assessed on a more regular basis, and would allow packages of care to be changed when required with Care Management oversight. In response to further questions, the Head of Service for Community Living Commissioning said that in relation to tendered providers fees had been managed via the tendered rates which were binding. The aim was to have geographical based providers, and they had looked at prices to generate savings based on this approach.

With regards to Priority 3 – Action Point 5: Domiciliary care, a Member asked for clarification regarding the additional support that had been made available to providers to recruit and retain staff. The Director of Adult Social Care said that during the pandemic, support had been wrapped around care providers. Additional resources had been provided over the winter period and a flexible approach had been taken in allocating Covid grants, with payments being passed on directly to staff to support retention. The fact that they were not seeing shortages in supply was credit to the Head of Service for Community Living Commissioning and her team, and the support provided by colleagues and partners to ensure that they could continue to care for people safely.

A Member asked for an update in relation to Priority 2 – Action 1: Improving life  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8