Agenda item

The Interim Director of Adult Social Care gave an update to Members on work being undertaken across the Adult Social Care Department focusing on the following reflections from her first 6-months in post:

• There are lots of very committed staff who want to make a difference,
• One of Bromley’s strengths in that many of its staff are loyal having worked for the Council for a long time and are proud of the fact and proud of Bromley,
• There is a very strong sense of place and identity,
• There is a very strong relationship with CCG and good working relationships with other health partners, and
• Bromley had a strong voluntary sector

The Director of Adult Social Care went on identify Opportunities for change:

• There are a number of competing priorities that are not a result of the overall vision for the Directorate – this has started to be addressed through the roll out the roadmap and transformation plan,
• There is a lack of systems which impedes effective demand management,
• There are too many silos which results in staff knowing what they are doing but not necessarily what others do and how projects contribute to the overall vision,
• Some easy wins can be made by getting systems in place,
• Staff are, in the main, up for change,
• Opportunities exist to make efficiencies by putting in place better processes.

The Director of Adult Social Care went on to give Members and overview of the current budget position:

• As agreed the budget position would continue to be formally reported to Members on a quarterly basis’
• There was still pressure caused by some of the savings put in last year,
• The number of people needing support was increasing as was the complexity of need’
• The Directorate was working on a number of management actions including:

§Stemming demand from D2A – Reviews had been reduced from 6 weeks to 5 days meaning higher cost intensive packages of care did not continue longer than necessary,

§The directorate was keeping on top of reviews in a timely way and the impact of reviews on the budget position was tracked,

§Increasing use of Occupational Therapy to support people who need 1:1 support,

§Concentrating on young people coming through transition

§Dealing with complaints and issues quickly and honestly.

In relation to the Transformation Programme for the Directorate, the Director of Adult Social Care reported that the following areas were the current focus:

• Workforce – work continued to reduce use of agency staff and get the senior management structure in place
• Front door – ensuring appropriate screening of clients, diverting people where appropriate with the effect of reducing waiting times
• Assessment – new more simple forms had been implement which reduced the time taken to complete the forms.
• Commissioning –actions that were transformational not just business as usual were being prioritised.
• Finance and performance data was being used to track the impact of the changes being implemented.
• A new ‘Transformation Lead’ had been appointed to provide support to the programme.

In response to a question from the Chairman, the Director of Adult Social Care explained that much of the Transformation was about culture change and would therefore take time to embed.  However, there were already some green shoots with evidence of improvement in some areas.

The Director of Adult Social Care confirmed that some good work had been done in partnership with the CCG in terms of reaching agreement around funding for individual packages of care.  Discussions with the CCG around joint commissioning of services were ongoing.  the aim of these discussions was to secure the same or a very similar price of care for both the Council and the CCG.

In relation to planning in the event of a no-deal Brexit, the Director of Adult Social Care confirmed that there were ongoing discussions with the provider market and the Government Guidance had been passed on.  In terms of any impact arising from EU nationals working for care homes, no major concerns had been raised by providers.  Dialogue with providers would remain open to ensure that any issues were identified and picked up early.

RESOLVED that the update be noted.