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Agenda and minutes

Agenda and minutes

Venue: Virtual Meeting using Zoom

Contact: Anita Patel tel: 0116 454 6342. Email:  anita.patel@leicester.gov.uk  Angie Smith tel: 0116 454 6354 Email:  angie.smith@leicester.gov.uk

Items
No. Item

75.

APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE

Minutes:

There were no apologies for absence.

 

The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting, and reminded everyone it was a virtual meeting, as permitted under Section 78 of the Coronavirus Act 2020 to enable meetings to take place whilst observing social distancing measures. The procedure for the meeting was outlined to those present. At the invitation of the Chair, all Members and officers present at the meeting introduced themselves.

76.

DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST

Members are asked to declare any interests they may have in the business to be discussed.

 

 

Minutes:

Members were asked to declare any interests they had in the business on the agenda.

 

Councillor Joshi declared an Other Disclosable Interest in that his wife worked for the Reablement Team at Leicester City Council.

 

For the avoidance of doubt, Councillor Joshi declared he would therefore remove himself from the meeting when agenda item 9, Appendix D (title) was discussed. Councillor March would take the position of Vice-Chair in the Chair at this point.

 

There were no other declarations of interest made.

 

77.

MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING pdf icon PDF 177 KB

The minutes of the meeting of the Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission held on 8 September 2020 have been circulated and the Commission is asked to confirm them as a correct record.

Minutes:

AGREED:

That the minutes of the Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission Meeting held on 8 September 2020 be confirmed as a correct record.

78.

PETITIONS

The Monitoring Officer to report on any petitions received.

 

Minutes:

The Monitoring Officer reported that no petitions had been received.

79.

QUESTIONS, REPRESENTATIONS AND STATEMENTS OF CASE

The Monitoring Officer to report on any questions, representations or statements of case.

Minutes:

The Monitoring Officer reported that no questions, representations or statements of case had been received.

 

The Chair confirmed with Members at this point that they had received additional information for Agenda Item 8, the Winter Care Plan. This was confirmed by Members.

80.

LEICESTERSHIRE COUNTY CARE LIMITED (LCCL) - VERBAL UPDATE

The Strategic Director, Social Care and Education, will provide an verbal update to the Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission on Leicestershire County Care Limited (LCCL).

Minutes:

The Strategic Director for Social Care and Education provided a verbal update to the Commission on Leicestershire County Care Limited (LCCL). The following points were made:

 

·         LCCL had taken over a number of care homes on the agreement they would pay a Capital sum over a period of time. The finance arrangement involved a significant capital payment, the last element of which £265k should have been paid in September. LCCL had asked for a deferment to take instalment payments to the end of the financial year. The Council said it would not agree unless LCCL ceased its proposal to make negative changes to terms and conditions for staff.

·         Concern was expressed by the Council that LCCL in fact went ahead and changed the terms and conditions for staff during the summer of 2020. Firm representations were made by the Authority, though it did not have any contractual powers or authority to prevent any changes. The changes were undertaken and without exception the current staff body had accepted the changes to terms and conditions and continued to work under new contracts. The quality of care continued to meet the standards and there were no issues reported.

·         The final payment had not been received. A request for deferment and instalment payments had again been received after the due date for payment. The Authority had asked for evidence for reasons why LCCL needed to pay in instalments, which had been provided and showed the organisation was in a significantly worse state now than previously.

·         Looking at the financial position of the organisation, it would be counter-productive for the residents if the organisation were to fail. A discussion would be had with finance colleagues on how to chase payment as a bad debt.

·         The Authority had been advised not to hold back the value of the debt from monies such as infection control monies as they were a grant from DHSC, and the Council would not have any authority to deduct the outstanding amount from it. It was also considered to be precarious to the organisation given the current situation.

 

Members had further discussion following the update. Points made and questions raised were responded to as follows:

 

·         Members commented on their disappointment on how the organisation had treated its staff. Members further noted that the option for a deferred payment plan was not being considered, but if the worse came to the worse would it not be better to have a deferred payment plan to recoup some of the money. The Strategic Director responded there was no risk the Authority would not receive the £200k but was a question of whether it received it quickly or over a period of months. If the organisation went into financial collapse, there were sufficient routes where the money could be recovered. It was further noted the Authority had been clear with LCCL there was a legal agreement that they owed the £200k.

·         LCCL had been flagged as a concern at the last meeting of the Commission, since  ...  view the full minutes text for item 80.

81.

SUPPORT FOR CARERS AND CARER STRATEGY UPDATE pdf icon PDF 544 KB

The Strategic Director Social Care and Education submits a report to provide the Scrutiny Commission with an update on the Joint Social Care and Health Recognising, Valuing and Supporting Carers in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Carer Strategy – 2018 to 2021. The report also provides an update on the support that has been provided to carers during the Covid-19 pandemic. A presentation will be delivered at the meeting.

 

The Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission is recommended to note the content of the report and are invited to provide comment and feedback to the Strategic Director and Executive. The Commission is also recommended to note the report is to be shared with the Children’s Social Care Scrutiny Commission.

Minutes:

The Strategic Director Social Care and Education submitted a report which provided the Scrutiny Commission with an update on the Joint Social Care and Health Recognising, Valuing and Supporting Carers in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Carer Strategy – 2018 to 2021. The report also provided an update on the support that had been provided to carers during the Covid-19 pandemic. A presentation was also delivered at the meeting.

 

Tracie Rees, Director for Adult Social Care and Commissioning introduced the report and provided a quick overview. It was noted that a joint LLR Carers Strategy had been in place since 2018 to run to 2021 (three-year strategy). The strategy update had been brought back to the Commission to run through some of the issues and challenges being dealt with, especially those that related to Covid-19 in adults and young carers.

 

Bev White (Lead Commissioner) and Nicola Cawrey (Business Change Commissioning Manager) delivered a presentation (attached for information). During the presentation, the following points of note were raised:

 

·         It was believed that the number of carers had increased from 32k to 46k post Covid-19. Included in the numbers were the number of carers registered with GPs, which had increased from 9,631 Feb 2020 to 9,901 in Oct 2020. It was noted carers had been encouraged to register with their GPs, and figures showed there had been some success in this.

·         Possible reasons for the increase in numbers of carers was given, including those now shielding, closure of care services and cancellation of care packages due to fear of Covid-19 from care workers in the home.

·         Priority One in the carer strategy was the identification of carers. On a positive note the work to raise the profile of family carers had had a positive impact in suggesting to people they might come forward and identify themselves as carers.

·         Leicester Carer Support Service, the Council’s commissioned service for carers over the age of 18 with various conditions and disabilities run by Age UK, had continued to support carers all through the Covid-19 pandemic, and included wellbeing calls, virtual support groups, information service, linking with Age UK’s Covid-19 helpline, and talking to carers with a focus on drawing up contingency plans, and ensuring carer ID cards were used, for example, to evidence reasons for being out during lockdown, supermarket preferential treatment. Officers had been working on a carer’s Passport across LLR and were in the process of being printed. Members were encouraged to share the information with constituents to ensure it helped as many carers as possible.

·         Social care teams had been looking after carers through wellbeing calls, support packages for carers under strain and supplying PPE to family carers when asked. The Council’s website had a Covid-19 page specifically for carers. Carers on the ‘Carers Got Talent’ distribution list had also been provided with information, including information on community testing.

·         Initially several queries were received from carers and organisations reporting people knocking on doors, and not knowing if they were genuine callers. Working with  ...  view the full minutes text for item 81.

82.

ADULT SOCIAL CARE WINTER PLAN AND SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONNAIRE - SERVICE CONTINUITY & CARE MARKET REVIEW 2020/21 pdf icon PDF 142 KB

The Strategic Director Social Care and Education submits a report to provide the Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission with an overview of the winter planning requirements and the completion of a Self-Assessment Questionnaire regarding service continuity and care market review as required by the Department of Health and Social Care.

 

The Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission is recommended to note the Council’s response to the Winter Plan and to provide comment and feedback to the Strategic Director and Executive. The Commission Members are also asked to note the Council’s response to the Service Continuity and Care Market Review self-assessment questionnaire.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Strategic Director Social Care and Education submitted a report which provided the Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission with an overview of the winter planning requirements and the completion of a self-assessment questionnaire regarding service continuity ad care market review as required by the Department of Health and Social Care.

 

Martin Samuels, Strategic Director presented the report and gave the following information:

 

·         The Commission was aware there had been a lot of demands on adult social care over the past six to seven months, and may well be starting the hardest part where the long expected second-wave of the virus had arrived and there was uncertainty as to how adult social care services would deal with the pressure on entering the winter period which was often a very demanding time for adult social care services anyway.

·         There was the possibility of implications with the country’s new relationship with the EU on 1st January 2021, and there was potential for an impact on the availability of supplies, on staff etc. for the social care systems.

·         The Department of Health and Social Care wanted to have assurance local authorities across the country were well prepared for the above. In September the Department published a national winter plan which set out a significant number of actions that the Department and other bodies were going to take, and local authorities were expected to take. The Department also released a self-assessment questionnaire relating to service continuity and the care market which the authority completed.

·         Adult social care had worked during the course of October to address the winter plan and questionnaire. Firstly for the winter plan the Statutory Director was required to write to the Minister by the end of October 2020 to state the authority had a plan, but there was no requirement to submit the plan to the department, or indeed, have a single document rather than have the plan captured in a range of inter-related documents. The authority’s plan had been circulated to the Commission Members as a single document. Secondly the service continuity and care market review was submitted on 21 October, also circulated to the Commission. All local authorities had submitted the questionnaire.

·         Self-assessment questionnaires for each local authority within a region were returned and each regional group of ADASS was asked to pull together responses and provide as a report to the Department of Health and Social Care. Because they were treated as advice to Ministers they were not published documents, however, headlines were provided and all of the things Adult Social Care were expected to be concerned about had been identified through the questionnaires, such as, the level of workforce capacity, the high rate of turnover of staff and ongoing vacancies in the sector which was expected to get worse. There were concerns with the availability of home care capacity in some parts of the region (less so in the city), the availability of qualified nurses to support nursing homes which was a worsening situation, the resilience  ...  view the full minutes text for item 82.

83.

ANY OTHER URGENT BUSINESS

Minutes:

The Chair agreed to hear the agenda items out of order. The following agenda item was heard next.

 

Councillor March informed the meeting that the Task Group report ‘Adult Social Care Workforce Planning: Looking to the Future’ had been taken to a City Mayor briefing and had received with positive comments. Recommendations received would be brought to the first meeting of the Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission in the new year.

 

The Chair congratulated Councillor March on the report.

 

Due to an earlier declaration of interest, Councillor Joshi left the meeting at this point. Councillor March was Vice-Chair in the Chair for the following agenda item.

84.

REABLEMENT SERVICE: RESPONSE TO COVID-19 AND WINTER RESILIENCE pdf icon PDF 369 KB

The Strategic Director Social Care and Education submits a supplementary report to the Winter Plan to the Scrutiny Commission which highlights the specific issues for the Reablement Services operated by Leicester City Council, arising from the Covid-19 pandemic and winter resilience planning.

 

The Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission is recommended to note the content of the report and are invited to provide comment and feedback to the Strategic Director and Executive.

Minutes:

The Strategic Director Social Care and Education submitted a supplementary report to the Winter Plan to the Scrutiny Commission, which highlighted the specific issues for the Reablement Service operated by Leicester City Council, arising from the Covid-19 pandemic and winter resilience planning.

 

Ruth Lake, Director of Adult Social Care and Safeguarding introduced the report which built on the previous report of winter resilience and included activity data and key quality indicators. The following points were made:

 

·         The current CQC rating for the registered service was ‘Good’. 

·         National benchmarking information was included following an audit the service participated in over the past two years.

·         Also described was how the Reablement Service fitted within the range of services offered, for example, it provided support for residents to prevent them going into care or hospital unnecessarily and also in returning home after something in their lives had happened, such as an illness or a fall, and a couple of case scenarios were provided in the report as examples.

·         Key impacts of Covid-19 since March were included, and as previously reported activity had been seen to decrease rather than increase, but it was believed it would be slightly different when going into the second wave of the pandemic with the hospital continuing to provide elective surgery where it could, and that was a large pathway through into reablement services, whereas a lot of activity had been curtailed in the first wave of the pandemic.

·         Resilience through the period was testament to staff and managers who had had to adapt, for example, wearing enhanced PPE, working with people known to have Covid-19. It was also an older workforce.

·         In the Winter Plan and Service Continuity Self-Assessment there was one line that referred specifically to reablement. Staff were very watchful and keeping a close eye on issues but were not substantially concerned about the capacity and resilience of the Council’s own Reablement Service going through the winter period, and there was confidence they would fulfil their core function.

·         The Reablement Service was a service of last resort and supporter of other services which were struggling and there was some concern in terms of agency’s expectations that they would be able to assist them with their activity.

 

Members noted the report. In response to queries raised the following points were noted:

 

·         The issue in relation to insurers was not an issue specifically for the services, but was whether or not Council’s insurance or insurance providers covered officers going into different settings, for example if some of the Council’s staff had to go in and work in a care home, for example, if the care home was struggling due to loss of staff, or other issues. Guidance had been taken from the Council’s insurers who confirmed staff going into other care settings were covered by the Council’s insurance to do that.

·         The Reablement Service is provided in a people’s own homes by carers, and not a service provided in a care setting. A step-down service is provided, for  ...  view the full minutes text for item 84.

85.

CLOSE OF MEETING

Minutes:

There being no other items of urgent business, the meeting closed at 7.51pm.