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Agenda and minutes

Agenda and minutes

Venue: Meeting Room G.01, Ground Floor, City Hall, 115 Charles Street, Leicester, LE1 1FZ

Contact: Anita Patel tel: 0116 454 6342. Email:  anita.patel@leicester.gov.uk  Aqil Sarang tel: 0116 454 5591 Email:  aqil.sarang@leicester.gov.uk

Items
No. Item

76.

APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE

Minutes:

There were no apologies for absence.

77.

DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST

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

 

 

Minutes:

Members of the commission were asked to declare any interests they may have 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.

 

Councillor Pandya declared she had no Other Disclosable Interest other than what had already been declared on her Register of Interest.

 

In accordance with the Council’s Code of Conduct neither interest was

considered so significant that it was likely to prejudice the Councillors’ judgement of the public interest and therefore neither Councillor was required to withdraw from the meeting during consideration of any items on the agenda.

78.

MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING pdf icon PDF 155 KB

The minutes of the meeting of the Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission held on 3 March 2022 have been circulated and the Commission is asked to confirm them as a correct record.

Minutes:

The Chair noted that in relation to the Extra Care Development scheme, the Commission had agreed that a Member link would be involved with the service and feedback on progress to the Commission. The former Commission Member who was no longer on the Commission membership had volunteered and was happy to remain as the member link. The Chair suggested that Members of the Commission forward their interest to the Scrutiny Policy Officer or himself.

 

AGREED:

The minutes of the meeting of the Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission 03 March 2022 were confirmed as a correct record.

79.

TERMS OF REFERENCE pdf icon PDF 25 KB

Members of the Commission are asked to note the Terms of Reference

Minutes:

AGREED:

That Members of the commission be requested to note the Terms of Reference.

80.

MEMBERSHIP OF THE SCRUTINY COMMISSION 2022/23

Members of the Commission are asked to note the Membership of the Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission:

 

Councillor Joshi (Chair)

Councillor Pandya (Vice Chair)

Councillor Batool

Councillor Kaur Saini

Councillor March

Councillor Patel

Councillor Singh Johal

Minutes:

The Chair welcomed the new Members to the Commission and thanked the

previous Commission Members for their efforts.

 

AGREED:

That the Membership of the Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission for 2022/23 be noted.

81.

DATES OF MEETINGS OF THE SCRUTINY COMMISSION 2022/23

Members of the Commission are asked to note the Commission Meeting dates as follows:

 

·         16 June 2022

·         18 August 2022

·         13 October 2022

·         8 December 2022

·         19 January 2023

·         9 March 2023

Minutes:

AGREED:

That Members of the Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission be requested to note the dates for the municipal year.

82.

PETITIONS

The Monitoring Officer to report on any petitions received.

 

Minutes:

The Monitoring Officer noted that none had been received.

83.

QUESTIONS, REPRESENTATIONS AND STATEMENTS OF CASE

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

Minutes:

The Monitoring Officer noted that none had been received.

84.

AN OVERVIEW PRESENTATION OF ADULT SOCIAL CARE SERVICES pdf icon PDF 1 MB

The Strategic Director for Social Care and Education will provide a presentation to the Commission providing an overview of the Adult Social Care services.

 

Members are recommended to note the presentation and pass any comments to the Strategic Director for Social Care and Education.

Minutes:

The strategic Director for Social Care and Education delivered a presentation providing the Commission with an overview of the Adult Social Care Service and informed the Commission that there were many changes taking place over the next municipal year and beyond, which would be of significant interest to the Commission to scrutinise.

 

As part of the discussions, it was noted that:

·         The money spent on the safeguarding was the Councils contribution to the Safeguarding Board and Care management was all about safeguarding

·         Safeguarding for children would come as a contribution to the Safeguarding Board from the Children Services budget

·         Comparisons with other similar authorities in the take up of services was in a very early stage and the three other authorities that were being compared with were Barnsley, Bradford and Coventry

·         Initial analysis showed that the expenditure was increasing faster than that of the other three authorities

·         The data that was being analysed was data from the ONS and GP records, the latest Census data was not yet available and that the Census data would provide a broader scope of the city as the city had changed in the last decade

·         A report in the future could be provided to the Commission once the Census data was available

·         In response to Members queries on the review of service users and their care packages, it was noted that, several hundred people were waiting for a review a year later, there was triaging in place for people waiting on the list to identify those with the most need and those being reviewed indicated that the rate of increase in care was slowing down

·         The Service were confident that the people who were waiting for a review would not require additions in their packages and the service were comfortable within budget

·         Alternatives ways of conducting the reviews was also being explored

 

During further discussions it was noted that:

·         The recognition of the Care Sector and being able to recruit would help lower cost, the Principle Occupational Therapist role had been advertised 4 times without a single applicant

·         The overall view of the sector was an area that needed improving collectively

·         Staff were continuing to carry out the work and Members were reassured that current staff were not being overburdened and the waiting list and triage system supported this

·         There were good development schemes in place for the existing staff to take on more qualified roles

·         The service was on track to deliver the savings and come under budget this year

 

The Strategic Director for Social care and Education also noted that after a decade of no inspections, inspections were to commence shortly. On 1 July 2022 the CCG would seize to exist and would be replaced by the Integrated Care Board, with a lot of work going on in terms of integration resulting in a lot of time being absorbed. The Deprivation and Liberty Safeguards was also being replaced by the Liberty Protection Safeguards which would develop entirely new systems requiring several hundred  ...  view the full minutes text for item 84.

85.

CARERS STRATEGY CONSULTATION REPORT pdf icon PDF 2 MB

The Strategic Director for Social Care and Education submits a report on the Carers Strategy Consultation to inform the Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission on the outcome of the engagement exercise carried out in relation to the Leicester, Leicestershire & Rutland Carers Strategy, and to advise of the consultation on the draft joint Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland (LLR) Carers Strategy 2022-2025.

 

Members of the Commission are recommended note the report and pass any comments to the Strategic Director for Social Care and Education.

Minutes:

The Deputy City Mayor for Social Care and Anti-Poverty introduced the item.

 

The Joint Integrated Commissioning Lead introduced the report, provided an overview of the strategy and talked about the engagement work carried out with carers. It was also noted that a further engagement session had been planned to take place at the King Power Stadium on 28 June 2022.

 

As part of the discussions, it was noted that:

·         The Chair took the opportunity to note that no organisation in the city would be able to match the work carried out by family members who care for loved ones fulfilling a role in their family without the recognition as a carer

·         It was suggested that 59 responses to the consultation when a vast number of people provide care was low and that this could be as a result of people not identifying as a carer, carers not liking to go online, language barriers and engagement fatigue, where a lot of consulting takes place but no change for carers

·         Members of the Commission noted that the documented evidence was good, but the responses were too low to improve the strategy and that feedback from the upcoming event should provide additional information to the consultation

·         Consideration to improving responses and the inclusion of the diverse workforce needs improving

 

In response to Members, it was noted that:

·         This was a short piece of engagement work carried out and not a full consultation

·         A lot of work was being undertaken to readdress things that have not already been covered

·         There was a real challenge to get people to respond to consultations and this was not unique to the department

·         The face-to-face event and online sessions are being carried out to further promote the consultation which is running until July

·         The lack of diversity in the consultation was acknowledged and there was ongoing work with national charities on challenges with engaging with carers from the diverse backgrounds in the city

 

Members of the Commission went on to suggest that it was vital to understand the root and branch of the situation and what was the make up communities that were being considered and what were their individual motivations. Being unable to change the system we use to create dialogue with the people of Leicester for whom the council served was a problem and it was important to understand how to create dialogue and get the channels right to improve the overall situation.

 

The strategic Director for Social Care and Education praised the Member for their contributions further noted that, writing a strategy simply to have a strategy was a failing of the public service, the service were clear of the enormous contributions of informal carers. There was a stark realisation that people in the city did not consider public services to be on their side and there was a distance between the two.

 

Members of the Commission were not happy or comfortable with what was being said in regard to carers from the BAME  ...  view the full minutes text for item 85.

86.

DRAFT DEMENTIA STRATEGY pdf icon PDF 428 KB

The Strategic Director for Social Care and Education submits a report on the Draft Dementia Strategy.

 

Members of the Commission are recommended to note the report and pass any comments to the Strategic Director for Social Care and Education.

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Strategic Director for Social Care and Education introduced the item on the Draft Dementia Strategy.

 

The lead Commissioner introduced the report and provided an overview of the report and noted that comments and concerns raised by Members on the previous item around the consultation process would be taken into consideration for the Dementia Strategy.

 

As apart of the discussions it was noted that:

·         There were currently 7 Admiral Nurses with recruitment in place a further 2 nurses

·         The grant funding that was available was being delivered in 2 schemes. Phase 1 was for applications of up to £5,000 with currently 21 bids being evaluated currently, this gave the opportunity for small community groups to bid for funding and phase 2 of the scheme would consider bids of up to £25,000

·         The work in the past few years had identified gaps in services for people who were younger, people with an intellectual disability, services for black and ethnic minority groups who are under represented and these had been picked out as the big ticket items as referred to in the presentation

·         Members suggested that the diagnosis of dementia starts with simple questions aimed at cognition that takes place at the GP Practice and there was a great deal of interest adopting the Bradford techniques locally

·         It was suggested that the development of this area and getting people to understand Dementia was important

 

In further discussions it was noted that the Aristotle Dementia Dash Board recorded data for people that could pin point information down to practice and patient level and that primary care colleagues were being requested to carry out annual health checked, with £17,000 being used to further develop the dashboard.

 

Healthwatch Leicester and Leicestershire noted that they had appointed a project officer in Leicester for dementia.

 

The Chair thanked Members and Officers for their valuable inputs.

 

AGREED:

1)    That the Strategic Director for Social Care and Education be requested to consider whether this item required a joint scrutiny session with the Health and Wellbeing Scrutiny Commission

2)    That the Strategic Director for Social Care and Education be requested to consider the comments raised by the Commission Members

3)    Ant; that the report be noted.

 

 

87.

WORK PROGRAMME pdf icon PDF 207 KB

The current work programme for the Commission is attached.  The Commission is asked to consider this and make comments and/or amendments as it considers necessary.

Minutes:

The Chair noted that the draft Work Programme for the Commission had been attached and Members of the Commission were welcome to providing any further suggestions for consideration to the Scrutiny Policy Officer.

 

It was also noted that the Commission would be exploring the possibility of joint Commission meetings with the Health and Wellbeing Scrutiny Commission for topics of common interest.

 

Councillor March provided a verbal update on the ongoing review into the Cost of Care and noted that the review would shortly be coming to its conclusions and thanked Officers for their time and support.

88.

ANY OTHER URGENT BUSINESS

Minutes:

There being no items of further discussion the meeting closed at 8:43pm.