Agenda item

The Strategic Director, Adult Social Care submits a report that brings together information on various dimensions of Adult Social Care (ASC) performance in the final quarter of 2016/17. The report may be treated as a provisional year- end report; a final year-end report will be produced late Autumn 2017.  The Commission is requested to note the areas of positive achievement and areas for improvement as highlighted in the report.

The Strategic Director, Adult Social Care submitted a report that brought together information on various dimensions of Adult Social Care (ASC) performance in the final quarter of 2016/17. The Strategic Director introduced the report and explained that overall, while not all the targets had been met, those that had been met had been very challenging.  Productivity had increased and people’s satisfaction with their experience was very high at almost 98%. The Chair commented that excellent work had taken place within the department.

Members considered the report and comments and questions raised included the following:

·      In response to a query around admissions to residential care, the Strategic Director explained that they were working to reduce admissions to residential care but there was a challenge to identify appropriate community provision; for some people with complex needs, community provision was not tenable. A Member referred to an earlier decision to close elderly persons’ homes and queried whether the council had been right to do this. The Strategic Director responded that there were no fewer beds and some homes had remained open and were being successfully run under different management. 

·      In relation to the length of stay in care homes, Leicester was below the national average for the length of stay. This was a positive measure which demonstrated that people were being admitted at the right time rather than earlier than necessary.

·      It was noted that people were living longer, though some people lived longer with a lower quality of life; the Strategic Director said that the aim was to help people to live longer with a better quality of life.

·      In response to queries relating to the workforce and absenteeism, the Commission heard that stress and mental health wellbeing was the biggest factor in staff absences. Strategies included looking at what might help people at work and making work a good place to be. If someone was off work with a stress related illness, it was much more difficult to get them back to work. The Chair suggested that it might be appropriate for Scrutiny to consider what other organisations did to help their staff manage stress.

·      A Member commented that the report showed a slightly higher call abandonment rate in Quarter 4 (measure ABP1c) and heard that while there had been a relative minor shift, Leicester’s figures were very low compared to the national standard. Calls were recorded and reviewed which enabled feedback, whether good or not to be given.

·      It was noted that the Quarter 4 measure APB1b showed a significant increase in the number of ‘other contacts’.  The Commission requested more information on this measure.

·      The Strategic Director expressed concerns that in Leicester, the general health of the population was less good than in other areas with some young people today likely to need adult social care support when s/he reached their forties or fifties. Once people were receiving adult social care support, they were likely to remain in the system for the rest of their lives.  The Chair commented that there was a need to raise awareness. The Commission heard that the majority of the adult social care activity was in meeting the needs of people, but the prevention aspect was the role of the whole Council, not least public health. Members suggested that it would be useful to carry out a joint piece of work with the Health and Wellbeing Scrutiny Commission to consider ways of raising awareness and encouraging people to take responsibility for their own health and wellbeing.

·      There was some discussion around the transition of care from Children’s to Adult Services. Members heard that there were on average about 20 individuals who met the threshold to transfer from Children’s to Adult Social Care every year. A Transition Board had been set up and had recently held their first meeting where a positive discussion had been held. The Board were due to meet again in about five weeks’ time.

·      In response to a query, Members heard that the outcome of the carer’s survey would be made available in the autumn 2017. The Chair asked for the survey to be added to the work programme.

·      The Chair referred to measure ABP5q relating to cases allocated to a worker for more than 100 days and questioned the significance of this data. The Strategic Director explained that the 100 days was an arbitrary number; and a question would be asked if a case was open for more than 100 days. Usually a case would be closed within that time frame, but some cases were more complex.

·      A Member questioned how often the senior management looked at the information contained within the report. The Commission heard that the data was reported on a monthly basis to the ASC Directors and the Deputy City Mayor (with responsibility for Adult Social Care) as appropriate and was acted upon.

·      The Chair referred to the quality of life outcomes as detailed in the ASC customer measures dashboard, stressing that this was an important issue. The Strategic Director explained that overall the feedback from the questions had been positive with service users responding that their quality of life had improved as the result of their care package and that they believed that their needs had been met in their previous assessment.

·      It was noted that in the customer measures dashboard for quarter 4, 91% of service users had indicated that they would not have changed anything in the process and it was questioned what the remaining 9% would have liked to have changed. Members heard that this may be because within that 9%, some people did not like the outcome of the process, or it may have been an issue around contact and response relating to the call centre process.  In response to a request for further information, Members heard that there was an opportunity for the customer to give their comments and more details could be brought back to the Commission.

The Chair concluded the discussion and congratulated the department’s officers for their hard work.

AGREED:

1)    that the report be noted and the department congratulated on their hard work;

2)    that further details be brought back to the Commission on the customer measures indicating 9% of service users who might have wanted to change something in the process;

3)    that further information be brought to the Commission on the Quarter 4 measure, APB1b relating to number of ASC ‘other’ contacts received.

4)    for the Chair to raise the issue of workforce management at the forthcoming meeting of the Overview Select Committee, noting that it was on their work programme for the November meeting;

5)    for the Carer’s Survey to be added to the Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission work programme; and

6)    to recommend that the Commission carry out a joint piece of work with the Health and Wellbeing Scrutiny Commission to consider ways of raising awareness and encouraging people to take responsibility for their own health wellbeing.