Minutes:
The Director of Adult Social Care gave an update to Members on work being undertaken across the Adult Social Care department.
The Director of Adult Social Care welcomed new Members to the Committee and stated that she looked forward to working with them over the coming months. It was highlighted that it had been good to see so many Members at the Directorate Induction session which she trusted had provided them with some useful information.
Over the last three years the Directorate had been driving forward a challenging Transformation Programme that had seen a number of changes, both in the structure of services and in the way they worked with individuals who needed and were eligible for services. The Directorate now had a strong integrated commissioning function, an operational service that was structured to work alongside the Primary Care Network structure in Bromley and a strong team who focused on Safeguarding, Policy and relationships with providers. The Directorate was ably supported by finance colleagues under the leadership of the Head of Finance for Adults, Health and Housing and performance colleagues who reported to the Assistant Director for Strategy, Performance and Corporate Transformation (Children and Adults).
The Director of Adult Social Care highlighted that further changes would be seen over the next few months as the Directorate responded to the Social Care Paper, People at the Heart of Care, and as they developed an ongoing relationship with colleagues in health as the new Integrated Care System was established.
As a priority, the team were currently working with care providers to develop a Market Sustainability Plan, which required providers to work with the Directorate to determine the Fair Cost of Care using a national tool, which had been rolled out over the last two weeks. Alongside this there was a requirement to develop a process for helping individuals to monitor their progress towards the planned care cap – this was particularly important for Bromley with a large self-funded community who in the future may call on local government funding. The Directorate was linking in to the Trailblazer sites established across the country and having regular communication with both the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Levelling up and Communities in order to maximise its knowledge base and learn from others, as well as sharing experiences and ideas.
The changes also required the Directorate to prepare for the reintroduction of an Assurance Process to be overseen by the Care Quality Commission. The Assistant Director for Safeguarding, Practice and Provider Relations was overseeing preparations for this and engagement with those with lived experience and carers would be of particular importance. The Directorate was keen to develop wider links with these groups over the next few months to ensure more meaningful engagement in the decision making and policy production with a wider group.
The Director of Adult Social Care said she was pleased to be able to report a positive year end position, acknowledging the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the service over the last year and was grateful for the allocation of the COVID-19 grants in recognition of this. At the current time the financial impact of potential changes relating to the Fair Cost of Care was being assessed, which would outstrip the additional funding coming into the Council, and a Programme Manager had been appointed to oversee this work for an 18-month period. It was suggested that a more detailed report on the changes could be presented to a future meeting of the Adult Care and Health Policy Development and Scrutiny Committee.
The Director of Adult Social Care promoted a new survey, which had launched on the Safeguarding page, and was providing an extremely innovative way of getting feedback from the wider community on safeguarding practice. This was another example of positive steps taken to engage with communities and Members were asked to share the link with residents in their wards: News: Public consultation survey is now live!
A Co-opted Member commended the work undertaken by the Director of Adult Social Care and her team. There had been a noticeable increase in service user involvement and had been well received by clients of Experts by Experience.
RESOLVED that the update be noted.