Issue - meetings

To consider a report of the Residential Provision Task and Finish Group.

The Committee gave consideration to the report of the Task and Finish Group which looked at Residential Provision in Cheshire East. As Chairman of the review, Councillor Frank Keegan provided a quick précis of the main themes in the report. He described that as a totality the recommendations were an attempt to try and establish the principle of the Electorate assuming responsibility for their own care and that the Council’s role within this was to help and facilitate. This would hopefully have the effect of helping people to stay in their own homes for longer rather than entering expensive residential care. Explaining the rationale behind the principle Councillor Keegan noted that firstly, it was what people wanted and secondly, carrying on with a ‘business as usual approach’ would be unaffordable and unsustainable in an increasingly pressured funding environment. The Group had also been influenced by Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need, particularly in the way it emphasised a holistic approach to people’s needs. Councillor Keegan explained that the Group had reached the conclusion that the upper echelons of the hierarchy could be better achieved by older people remaining in their own homes and being part of the community.

Moving on to detail how this principle might be achieved, Councillor Keegan asserted that the Council needed to be pro-active and think creatively about how it might offer services in a different way. Outlining a proposal in the report, Councillor Keegan explained the idea of ‘social care hubs’ which would be locally defined entities co-ordinating partnership working and funding whilst hosting a variety of recreational and social activities. Councillor Keegan acknowledged that the detail of how the hubs would function was not yet finalised but suggested a role for the Scrutiny Committee in scoping out their remit in subsequent meetings.

Other Members of the task group highlighted the following issues in the report:

·         That the co-ordination of services across the Council required improvement

·         That the Council needed to explore providing additional sheltered accommodation in the North of the Borough

·         That the Council’s planning service needed to become more involved with the care of the elderly

·         That support for carers was vital to helping people to remain in their own homes and independent.

Councillor Janet Clowes welcomed the report and confirmed that it had reaffirmed some areas of work that were already ongoing whilst providing some new ideas which would need further thought.

The Chairman thanked Councillors Frank Keegan, Laura Jeuda, Irene Faseyi, Shirley Jones and Janet Jackson for all their hard work in putting together the report.

RESOLVED

a)    That the report of the Scrutiny Task and Finish Group be approved

b)    That the recommendations of the Group be endorsed, and referred to the Cabinet for consideration and necessary action, and that Cabinet be invited initially to comment on the details of the recommendations.

c)    That the Cabinet response be included on the Committee’s work programme to possibly inform further action.