Agenda item

Phil Lloyd, Director of Adults, Community, Health and Wellbeing, attended to provide an overview including the vision and transformation of the Directorate and an outline of current issues which faced it. He drew particular attention to the increasing numbers of people needing assessment and funded care in Cheshire East which had resulted in a programme of transformational work across the Directorate, of which personalisation and prevention were central themes. 

Phil Lloyd continued to explain that the Directorate was broken down into the following sections:

1.    Local Independent Living Team (LILT) – Aimed to get the greatest possible increase in independence for those adults, families carers and communities. This team ensured that the directorate was both local and personal.

2.    Strategic Commissioning – Aimed to build capacity in communities and harness local skills to increase independence. The aim was to improve value for money by ‘joining up’ services through commissioning practice.

3.    Care4CE – It was explained that this was the social care provider arm of the Adults, Community, Health and Wellbeing Directorate. Care4CE worked with health and wellbeing colleagues to deliver the ‘lifestyle concept’ in which existing facilities such as libraries, leisure and green spaces would increasingly be utilised for the health and wellbeing of all residents with a focus on those who were already accessing or potentially would access social care services and funding.

Following the presentation Members made a number comments and queries regarding the work of the Directorate.

It was agreed that it was appropriate for the Ofsted findings for Children’s Services to be brought to the Committee. It was confirmed that such a practice would hold a lot of value considering that there were increasing overlaps in terms of work with families, safeguarding, young carers and in the transition between children’s to adult’s services. It was agreed that this should be put on the work programme.

It was queried when the Directorate plan would be reviewed. It was reported that as it was part of the corporate plan process it was reviewed quarterly.

Members indicated that keeping older people informed of services was important and officers indicated that there was a resource directory available on the Council’s website and that an information gateway was being developed. It was noted that the Committee would be interested to evaluate efficacy of this system and to discover whether anything more could be done to ensure information was available more widely than to those with access to computers. It was agreed that a demonstration of the information gateway could be added to the work programme.

A more general discussion was held regarding what constituted an ‘ageing society’ and where the ‘pressure points’ for the Directorate were located. Phil Lloyd explained that the sources of pressure were coming from a variety of directions. Firstly, he explained that there was awareness that the Directorate was providing services when perhaps other things could be done to remove dependency and improve independence. It was reported that work was being done to improve this. Secondly, he contended that although people were living longer and that was positive, this also meant that the period of ill health was also longer, putting more pressure on resources. Lastly, it was noted that a difficulty facing the Directorate was people paying for their own care in an inefficient manner, therefore putting an unnecessary burden on Cheshire East. Phil Lloyd explained how the Council were now helping people to manage their own budgets better, reducing the burden on resources.

A query was made about the potential impact of the financial difficulties that the Southern Cross Residential Homes were going through. It was reported nationally that no homes would close through this transition process but that there would possibly be staff reductions in respective homes. Lucia Scally, Head of Strategic Commissioning and Safeguarding, assured the Committee that Cheshire East would continually monitor the quality of these homes and Southern Cross’ position.

Regarding this latter point, it was questioned whether the Directorate relied solely on Care Quality Commission inspections as there was some doubt as to the quality of these. Lucia Scally explained that Cheshire East did monitor the quality of provision in the Borough.  This was achieved through:

• Reviews of individual placements where the PCT or Council fund and commission the service.
• Contracting and Supporting People team undertaking contract compliance monitoring.
• Safeguarding unit work to ensure safety.
• Collectively, Cheshire East ensured training and awareness of development within wider workforce of providers through the provider forums.

RESOLVED – That the presentation be noted.