Agenda item

The Director for Adult Social Care and Commissioning submits a report to present, seek feedback and endorsement on the new ‘Leicester City Adult Social Care Autism and Neurodiversity Delivery Plan 2024-2026.’

To provide an update on progress since presenting the last Autism report to the Scrutiny Commission in 2024.

To seek approval on the suggested recommendations and proposed next steps.

The Director for Adult Social Care and Commissioning submitted a report to present, seek feedback and endorsement on the new ‘Leicester City Adult Social Care Autism and Neurodiversity Delivery Plan 2024-2026.

It was noted that:

• The key recommendations from the previous consultation were to write a detailed delivery plan for Leicester City Council and formulate a joint needs assessment.
• Leicester City Council was an active partner in the LLR Learning Disability and Autism (LDA) Collaborative, which had led to focused pieces of work to benchmark the LDA services and support for people with a learning disability and/or autism.
• Leicester City Council were aligning with the national neurodiversity strategies and what was important for people with neurodiversity.
• Detailed engagement had been received from a consultation which formulated 6 key priorities from local residents which were:

o   Improving knowledge and understanding of autism and neurodiversity in Leicester city

o   Improving the quality and access to information, advice and support related to autism and neurodiversity

o   Improving opportunities for autistic and neurodivergent people to gain and maintain meaningful employment and other activities

o   Supporting public places to be more accessible and autism/neurodiversity friendly

o   Working with partners to reduce health inequalities – keeping mentally and physically healthy

o   Working with partners to make local public transport more accessible for autistic and neurodivergent people

• The purpose of expanding the Delivery Plan was to achieve better outcomes for both people with neurodiverse conditions and for autistic people, as well as ensuring that the services and support delivered was sensitive to the diverse needs of autistic and neurodivergent people. 
• The first step towards achieving the delivery plan was to gain greater understanding of the needs of people who required Adult Social Care support who may also have neurodivergent conditions.
• An equality impact assessment would be completed and run alongside the delivery plan, it would be iterative and live.
• Therefore, work would be undertaken on data collection to develop a needs assessment as well as benchmarking work with other Local Authorities and partners to inform our decision making.
• Commissioners would work with families and people with lived experience to understand the scale of the work, opportunities, risks and issues and what could be reasonably achieved for the delivery plan.
• The Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) was in draft, it was now spilt into - Learning disabilities, Learning disabilities and autism, and Autism separately so all of those areas are looked at their own merit.

• Funding had been identified for the Monday Club, which offered good support for autistic people up to age 25 and work was taking place to ensure the next year was funded.
• There were now 2 new Job Coaches within the Supported Employment Service that specialised in working with autistic people.
• The Organisational Development Team were working with the Adult Social Care team to deliver corporate training on neurodiversity to support managers and their teams. Webinars and resources would be available on the council’s intranet about reasonable adjustments for people that needed them.
• The report was taken to the Lead Executive Member for Adult Social Care and feedback was received and noted. Systemwide work would take place across LLR Health and Social Care. ASC were also working closely with LDA, the County Council and Public Health.
• Although it was a City Delivery Plan, they were working in a wider context and excellent support within the LDA collaborative to be able to do that. Especially with health inequalities work.
• It would be aligned to the National Strategy and a wider LLR plan.
• Alongside the work completed with Lead Executive Member for Adult Social Care, an aspiration for Leicester to be an autism and neurodivergent friendly city.

As part of discussions the Chair invited members to make comments, and it was noted that:

• It was very welcomed that learning disabilities, autism and neurodiversity were separated and looked at individually as not all people had cooccurrences. The plan initially started looking at autistic adults and key strategies such as the Autism Act aligned with that and was only the second piece of legislation that directly talked about disability in the country. Subsequent to that the statutory guidance came which was followed. There wasn’t any national legislation or strategy around neurodiversity or ADHD.
• Locally the waiting lists for people to receive an ADHD assessment were far longer than those waiting for an autism assessment. A local charity organisation called ADHD Solutions had recently folded, which has left gaps for people to get support whilst they were on the waiting lists.
• When children turn 18 they were looked after by the Care Act and the rules were very different. Support needed to begin early for people who were looked after, to ensure their transition into Adult Social Care works better than it currently did.
• The notion of trying to think around what would a city that works for people who were neurodivergent. A lot of people did not need access to formalised support services. What they need was to live in a society that was both adaptable and tolerant to their individual needs.
• Commissioning work had taken place jointly between Adult Social Care and the Integrated Care Board (ICB) on ADHD Services following the closure of ADHD Solutions. Solutions had been identified to keep supporting people with ADHD. Such as interim solutions to ensure the support groups continued. A soft market test was due to take place so see what interest was available to be able to reprocure and provide that service using funding left over from ADHD Solutions no longer providing that service.
• The Care Act ignored and disregarded diagnosis. Work was completed on a principle which is called the social model of disability which treats the person as the person. A holistic look at that individual, how they managed to interact with the world and what those challenges were. Some VCSE led services did require a diagnosis as part of their criteria as a small organisation.

AGREED:

1.    That the report be noted

2.    That Care Leavers and care experienced people would be included in the equality impact assessment.

3.    Dementia be added to the work programme.