Agenda item

The Strategic Director, Adult Social Care and Health submits a report that presents an overview of the strategic priorities developed for Adult Social Care for the year 2016/17.  The Commission is recommended to note the contents of the report, and feedback on any further information it would like to receive over the year 2016 /17 on the implementation of these strategic priorities.

The Strategic Director, Adult Social Care and Health presented a report that gave an overview of the strategic priorities for Adult Social Care for 2016/2017. As part of this, Members were referred to a set of six Strategic Priorities that were established for the year:

1)    Improve the experience for our customers of both our own interventions and the services we commission to support them.

2)    Implement a preventative and enablement model of support, to promote wellbeing, self-care and independence and recovery into an ‘ordinary life’

3)    Improve the opportunities for those of working age to live independently in a home of their own and reduce our reliance on the use of residential care, particularly for people with learning disabilities or mental health support needs.

4)    Improve our offer to older people supporting more of them to remain at home and to        continue to reduce our reliance on the use of residential care.

5)    Improve the work with children’s social care, education (SEN) and health partners to      continue to improve our support for young people with care and support needs and their families in transition into adulthood.

6)    Continue to develop our understanding of the benefit to our customers of what we do, and to learn from this information so as to improve and innovate

A Member commented that there was a perception that people depended too much on Adult Social Care, but those six Strategic Priorities emphasised that the priorities were intended to improve peoples’ quality of life. He believed that it was important to enable people to be as independent as possible and he hoped that those priorities would be implemented.

In response to a question; the Strategic Director explained that there were plans to implement each of the above priorities; and for example a report on promoting independence and reducing the use of residential care was included on the agenda. The Chair asked for the some of the implementation plans to be added to the Commission’s work programme.

Support was expressed to promote independent living but Members questioned what support would be available to enable people with mental health problems to continue to live at home. The Strategic Director responded that people with mental health issues and living at home with families may receive a support package which could pay for a Carer.  Alternatively it was possible that this might be an issue to be resolved by Housing rather than Adult Social Care if the needs were related predominately to housing and not care and support.

Members asked how someone who was having difficulties in living independently might be identified as being in need. The Strategic Director responded that if there was an incident at home which resulted in a hospital visit, that person’s needs would be identified there. However, a high proportion of referrals came either from the community or were self-referrals. The main concern was with older people who were not in contact with their G.P. as in those cases their situation may not be identified unless there was an incident. Councillor Joshi informed the Commission that there was a considerable amount of help and support available for people with mental health issues and a G.P. would be able to signpost to the appropriate agency.

The Chair referred to the Shared Lives initiative and questioned whether there might be any funding available, perhaps through the Lottery or European Union, to enable family homes to be extended to become a shared property. An example might be for a bedsit to be added to a property so that someone could support an elderly relative.

Councillor Palmer, Deputy City Mayor responded that the Council were committed to finding ways to support independent living and for some families this might be a solution. The Government however had looked at this option before and the take up had been minimal. It was however an interesting suggestion and there was a need to consider carefully as to how this could be progressed. The meeting heard that equity release was an option and many elderly people were asset rich but generally reluctant to release equity on their property.

AGREED:

                   that the report be noted.