Agenda item

Report ACH21-044

The Committee considered a report providing an update on the Adult Care and Health Portfolio Plan for the first half of 2021-22.

The Adult Care and Health Portfolio Plan 2018 to 2022 was refreshed for 2021/22 in line with the Council’s Transformation Programme and Making Bromley Even Better. The Plan continued to focus on four priority outcomes:

·  Safeguarding

·  Life chances, resilience and wellbeing

·  Integrated health and social care

·  Ensuring efficiency and effectiveness

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. During 2021/22 officers had been delivering on the Portfolio Plan at the same time as they continued to work remotely where possible, and as lockdown restrictions had eased and then been removed, allowing services to once again be offered in person as well as virtually. The first six months of 2021/22 had seen progress on the majority of the actions, particularly in the case of newly commissioned or re-tendered services. Work also continued as part of the Transforming Adult Social Care programme to develop the working practices of front-line officers and the structure in which they operated to ensure best value support and services for vulnerable residents. Key achievements in the first half of 2020/21 had included:

Priority 1 – Safeguarding:

-  A safeguarding training strategy for 2021/23 was developed to ensure all training needs were met. This included a number of new courses on topics of particular concern in the borough.

-  The operational division had been re-structured to provide residents with appropriate pathways to meet their needs and enable officers to work more effectively.

Priority 2 – Life chances, resilience and wellbeing:

-  A Children and Young People’s Integrated Commissioning Programme had been agreed with health commissioners in July 2021. The initial focus would be on therapy services, community paediatrics and recommissioning Bromley Healthcare’s children and young people services.

-  The 0-25 Governance Board was established in June 2021 and would oversee the work of the Transition Transformation Programme.

Priority 3 – Integrated health and social care:

-  Newly commissioned services for people with learning disabilities had begun to provide a community-based day activities service together with a buildings-based day service for people with complex needs. Newly re-tendered services had also begun for respite and supported living provision.

-  The new domiciliary care contracts for social care and health were awarded and services mobilised.

-  The Single Point of Access model for hospital discharge was implemented and these arrangements made the finals of the prestigious Municipal Journal Achievement Award 2021 for Care and Health Integration. Bromley was declared the winner of the award in September 2021.

Priority 4 – Ensuring efficiency and effectiveness:

-  The transformation of community mental health services had begun with the establishment of the new Bromley Mental Health and Wellbeing Hub: an innovative NHS/voluntary sector partnership comprising of a multi-disciplinary team including both clinical and non-clinical staff.

The Assistant Director for Strategy, Performance and Corporate Transformation highlighted that the Quarter 2 update reflected the comments received previously from Members. Additional data had been added, and updates on Assistive Technology and the 0-25 Project would be presented later in the meeting, as requested by the Committee.

In response to a question, the Director of Adult Social Care said that, under the Quality Assurance programme, case files were randomly selected for audit, as this provided a better measure of reality. It was noted that the department were also looking to undertake peer-on-peer audits and carry out supervision to ensure they covered as many angles as possible.

A Member noted that it was good to see that work was continuing to recruit staff, with 82% of frontline staff now being permanent, and asked if there was any comparative data available. The Assistant Director for Strategy, Performance and Corporate Transformation advised that there was not a national benchmark for the recruitment of permanent staff into Adult Services. It was highlighted that the Social Work sector was particularly difficult to recruit to, and due to the nature of the market, anything above 70% was considered to be outstanding. Agency salaries were lucrative; however the Director of Adult Social Care had built an ethos of the way in which the department should be run, and support packages were provided, which meant that the offer was not solely focused on salary. The Member further noted that a number of approved carers providing long-term placements had recently dropped out of the Shared Lives scheme and enquired as to the reasons why. The Director of Adult Social Care advised that a number of carers had given up these roles – some had retired, whilst others had sadly lost the individual that they had been caring for. However it was noted that the retention rate was good, and numbers were increasing.

RESOLVED that the progress on the actions associated with the Adult Care and Health Portfolio Plan 2018/22 for the first half of 2021/22 (Appendix 1) be noted.