Agenda and minutes

Apologies fro absence were received from Councillor Kaur Saini, Councillor March and Councillor Patel.

The Chair took the opportunity to thank the Members of the Commission and Officers who supported the Commission for their attendance and noted that it was a privilege to Chair the Commission over the last few years.

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

The Chair declared that his wife worked in the Reablement Team at Leicester City Council.

The minutes of the meeting of the Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission held on 19 January 2023 have been circulated and the Commission is asked to confirm them as a correct record.

The Chair requested that recommendations raised at the meeting of the Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission held on 19 January 2023 be added to the work programme for the new municipal year.

AGREED:

That the minutes of the meeting of the Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission held on 19 January 2023 be confirmed as a correct record.

The Monitoring Officer to report on any petitions received.

The Monitoring Officer noted that none had been received.

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

The Monitoring Officer noted that none had been received.

The Strategic Director for Social Care and Education submits a report on Adult Social Care Performance Monitoring 2022/23 (to Q3).

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

The Deputy City Mayor for Social Care and Anti Poverty introduced the item on Adult Social Care Performance Monitoring and took the opportunity to thank the Director for Adult Social Care for managing and interpreting complex information that enabled the rest to understand.

The Director for Adult Social Care introduced the report and drew Members attention to the key highlights of the report and further noted that as a service it was important to acknowledge and understand the strengths and weaknesses of the service and that knowing both the positives and negatives of the service was a fundamental part of getting through the inspection process.

It was also noted that support for people with advice and information was available for them that helped them find solutions for themselves and focussed on a strength based approached ensuring that people could access preventative services and short term offers and these had proven to have positive outcomes for people as highlighted in the report.

Additionally, it was noted that the level of complaints remain low and the commendations remain steady even during these challenging times.

As part of the discussions, it was noted that:

·         Many reports do come in but when concerns are investigated, they don’t require a formal safeguarding enquiry follow up and is usually related to the quality of care rather than harm or abuse

·         Alert enquiry patterns had changed and in comparison, to others in the East Midlands Leicester compared better

·         All data was captured on the Liquid Logic system and a further breakdown of the data was available through the system which allowed the data to be linked to primary need types, age, gender and ethnicity which gave the service an understanding the equity of access for the future planning

·         An East Midlands group was set up with the principal social worker and as part of that, conversations were underway to understand what the service were recording, what was being done with the data and whether there were any differences in practice that might account for the differences in numbers.

·         Locally designed metrics as part of conversations during the review process were important, although they could be compared with other council’s it provided information on whether the service provided was making a difference.

In further discussions the Chair shared his pleasure to see that the number in complaints had fallen and the commendations had improved gradually and further enquired on how the data was collected.  In response to the Chair’s query the Director for Adult Social Care noted that, there was a statutory complaints process through which all complaints were channelled and logged formally although, some concerns were resolved informally if appropriate, following which an annual complaints report was produced.

AGREED:

1)    That the Strategic Director for Social Care and Education be requested to provide a future update on the work carried out by ADASS and the work being undertaken in comparing CQC ratings with other authorities.

2)    And that, the Adult Social Care team be thanked for their  ...  view the full minutes text for item 37.

The Strategic Director for Social Care and Education submits a report to provide Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission Members with a Year 2 update on progress against the actions in the Leicester City Joint Health and Social Care Learning Disability Strategy 2020 – 23.

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

The Deputy City Mayor for Social Care and Anti-Poverty took the opportunity to praise the team who had led on the work. it was also noted that the strategy had proved to have a positive impact on people’s lives.

The Strategic Director for Social Care and Anti-Poverty introduced the item and drew Members attention to the groups of people who draw on Adult Social Care services and noted that although 2/3 of the people were older people half of the ASC budget funded support to working age adults who had more complex needs including those with learning disabilities and that this group drew on services at an earlier stage in their lives.

It was further noted that the Learning Disability Strategy was particularly important as it was half of the budget with a smaller number of people and also that due to the length of time people of a working age with learning disabilities draw on services, and this had an effect on their life experience as much it was influenced by the quality of the engagement with the service providers over a long period of time, further highlighting the importance of the strategy.

The Lead Commissioner provided an overview of the report. It was noted that the this was a joint strategy with health colleagues and that the original strategy ended in December 2023.

It was further noted that the intention to extend the existing strategy for 2 years (2024-26) was to ensure continued delivery on the commitments outlined for the strategy as listed below:

·         Healthy Lifestyles

·         Equal Healthcare

·         Social care

·         Housing and accommodation

·         Access and inclusion to leisure, recreation, and public transport

·         Work, college, and money

·         Moving into adulthood

·         Support for carers

As part of the discussions, the Chair noted that the report was encouraging and requested info on how the data and information was gathered. In response to the Chair it was noted that, there were many groups in the city that were made up of people that had learning difficulties, this helped to identify priorities that were key to people with learning disabilities and helped identify what actions could be taken to improve the service and what works well for service users. The Chair further suggested that this continued effort with support and guidance for those with learning difficulties could lead to positive and successful outcomes.

The Lead commissioner further added that the Learning Disabilities Partnership Board (LDPB) chaired by the We Think Group, met regularly with stakeholders where groups participated and contributed.

As part of the discussions it was noted that the Disability Confidence Scheme was a nationally accredited scheme, which was supported by local employers with hopes that more join in the future, there was support available from the DWP for organisations that signed up to the scheme to prepare systems and processes to support people appropriately and the Lead Commissioner was pleased to note that Leicester City Council was part of the scheme. 

Members of the Commission thanked Officers for an easy read  ...  view the full minutes text for item 38.

The Strategic Director for Social Care and Education submits a report that sets out the quality of care in regulated services for Adult Social Care in Leicester.

Members of the Commission are recommended to note the report and the changes within the local care market during and since the pandemic.

The Deputy City Mayor for Social Care and Anti-Poverty introduced the item and noted that recent reports in the media were not accurate picture and that figures used had been manipulated.

The Strategic Director for Social Care and Education took the opportunity to commend the Deputy Head of Contracts and Assurance for Adult Social Care

And their team for their dedication to ensure care homes could operate during and after Covid.

The Strategic Director for Social Care and Education further noted that, it had been long standing policy of the government that provisions should essentially be delivered externally and there were some limited internal provisions, with all provisions regulated by the CQC. The Authority had contracts with almost all care homes in the city and the authority’s statutory responsibility was to ensure that the local care market was operating sufficiently and with the right service.

In response to the recent media coverage, it was noted that the media only covered poor ratings and there was ongoing work during these challenging periods, with work force issues and the cost for providers to deliver quality of care and the teams involvement directs this.

The Deputy Head of Contracts and Assurance for Adult Social Care provided an overview of the report and noted that the CQC were carrying out risk based reviews, so were only going to care homes where they think there are issues. it was further noted that the CQC ratings across the East Midlands region was of concern and a meeting with the CQC had been arranged locally.

The Fair Cost of Care work as part of the government review provided a better understanding than previously and suggestions were made by some providers that what we pay for care is less than what it cost to deliver the care the to put this on the Work Programme for the new Commission.

Regarding the article in the Leicester Mercury, the Deputy Head of Contracts and Assurance for Adult Social Care noted that the article said that 60% of providers in Leicester were failing whereas 50% had a rating reduction, 29% of care homes stayed the same and that 17% had an improved rating. So, it was 60% of the 39 care homes that they'd seen, but not 60% of the entire market.

Furthermore, in domiciliary care, the service had contracts with 32 of 141 providers and only 4 of those required improvement and work was underway closely with those providers on a risked based approach.

As part of the discussions and in response to Members questions it was noted that:

·         Meeting with the CQC was planned and had not taken place yet and was part of the work with ADASS, it's planned for the near future to  have the required discussions

·         There had been a huge change in CQC,  a whole new management team locally both from the head of inspection all the way through to our inspection managers locally have changed over the last year, a  whole new team for  ...  view the full minutes text for item 39.

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.

The Chair took the opportunity to thank the Members of the Commission for their attendance and work on the Commission.

The Chair further took the opportunity to thank the Strategic Director for Social Care and Education, his Team and the Executive Member for their ongoing work through difficult times.

The Chair thanked the Democratic Support Officer and the Scrutiny Support Officer for their support to the Commission.

The work programme was noted.

There being no items of urgent business, the meeting closed at 18:50