Agenda item

(1)  To examine the amended draft Adult Social Care Commissioning Strategy as appended.

(2)  To agree any comments and recommendations it may have for Cabinet.

At its meeting held on held on 11 September, the committee had given initial consideration had been given to the Adult Social Care commissioning Strategy. The Committee had made a number of comments regarding the strategy and had also recommended that a copy of the delivery plan arising from the strategy be circulated to members of the Committee.

The Committee considered the report of the Director of Adult Social Care and Independent Living regarding the draft Adult Social Care Commissioning Strategy together with a number of additional appendices including delivery plans.

In addition, Ann Riley gave a presentation on the content of the strategy.

Members of the committee were then invited to comment on the report and presentation and the following matters were raised:

·         In response to a question regarding public accessibility to the services provided by the Council, the committee was informed that a new service directory was due to be published soon with 40,000 copies being distributed throughout the borough including doctors surgeries, hospitals etc. Also, the Council’s website would be re-designed to provide easy access advice to families and professionals.

·         In response to a question about how the Council actively pursued measures to ensure that elderly people to continue to live at home, it was reported that it was implicit in the strategy that the preference of the Council was to keep people in their own homes with domiciliary care and adaptations.

·         The ageing well board had recently reviewed its work and had decided to target isolation and loneliness as a priority and were hoping to link into silverline.

·         The Council had established a new quality assurance team in strategic commissioning which was working closely with partners in relation to safeguarding of adults.

·         That the document should make reference to ‘young carers’ on page 46 of the document.

·         The Committee felt that the strategy should be amended to include information about empowering the local community.

RESOLVED-

(a)  That the report be received;

(b)  That the consultation arrangements be extended beyond health care colleagues to include carers also;

(c)  That a further report be submitted to a future meeting on the details of the quality assurance team;

(d)  That  it be recommended that the strategy be amended to include  information about empowering the local community