Agenda item

Sarah Farragher, Contact and Enablement Service Manager, to present

Sarah Farragher, Change Leader, Adult Social Care, gave the following powerpoint presentation:-

 

What do we need to do

-          The Care Act has a strong focus on carers, recognising the caring role as fundamental to the whole adult social care system.  Carers have increased rights and status within the Act with enhanced rights to promotion of wellbeing, earlier support and personalised support

 

In Rotherham

-          We have a mixed picture of carer involvement and support.  We need to build stronger collaboration between carers, the Council and other partners

-          We want to lay the foundations for achieving these partnerships and set the intention for future working arrangements

-          We want to do something that makes a difference now whilst setting up the right co-produced options for the future

 

Progress to date and timescales

-          This is a Rotherham Carers Strategy not a Rotherham Council Carers Strategy.  It is a partnership plan

-          Hopefully will be taken through the Health and Wellbeing Board

 

Progress to date and timescales

-          The Group has met three times and the first draft of the Strategy has been circulated and comments made.  Second draft to be worked up following Carers Rights Day

Further work being undertaken to strengthen the voice of young carers

Asking carers “what three things would make a positive difference?” through Crossroads AGM, at Carers Rights Day and through volunteer sector forums

 

Strategy based around three outcomes

-          Outcome One – Carers in Rotherham are resilient

-          Outcome Two – The caring role is manageable and sustainable

-          Outcome Three – Carers in Rotherham should have their needs understood and their wellbeing promoted

 

What do we need to do to achieve these outcomes?

-          We need to strengthen some things that are already in place to increase the reach and get parts of the system working together better

-          We need to view carers as partners when making decisions about care (without losing the voice of the cared for person)

-          We need more people doing Carers Assessments including partners in the independent and voluntary sector

-          Need to develop a Carers Wellbeing budget and Allocation System (RAS)

-          We need whole family assessments to stop duplication of assessments

-          We need to target services better and understand who our carers are and what they need

-          We need to provide reassurance for carers that a back up is there when they cannot provide the usual care

 

What three things?

-          Information and advice

-          A voice

-          Consistent support

-          Valued

-          Time for me

-          Involved

-          Quality care

-          A break

-          Financial help

-          Understanding

 

Strategy – who is involved

-          Currently being developed through a working group of partner agencies – outcomes came from group and were part of consultation

-          Hope was to get some carers onto the group (thirty people expressed an interest at Carers Rights Day event)

 

Consultation and Engagement

-          Carers Forum – event end January/beginning of February organised by Councillor Mallinder

-          Plan to do something every four-six months – format to be agreed

 

Measures and Accountability

-          Strategy group will have responsibility for delivery

-          There will also be a commissioning plan with specific actions, timescales following on from Strategy

 

More information about what is going on in Rotherham

-          Carers Forum – currently being redeveloped

-          Care4Carers – very strong and active as a group

-          Alzheimers Café – demand outstripping supply over 200 carers attend four cafes

-          Carers Resilience Service – pilot project based in GP surgeries

-          Social Prescribing – identifies carers and refers through for support as well as “patient”

-          Carers Emergency Scheme – over 1,000 carers registered

 

What is happening in Rotherham

-          Approximately 2,000 hours a month of homecare were provided through the carer specific schemes

-          So far thirteen carers have received Care Act assess support as a carer … more to be done

 

What is going well?

-          Good partnership commitment

-          Social Workers and Carers Support Officers were meeting carers at the Carers Corner to complete the assessments

-          Mental Health Carers Services very strong – craft groups, resilience training etc.

-          Increase in referrals to Carers Corner following pro active work with GPs

 

What is not working well

-          Carers Corner out of the way – difficult to find.  Footfall at the Centre is low (even after the work)

-          Plan to change building name meant difficult to advertise as the information would go out-of-date

-          Carers Emergency Scheme was not working for carers of people with mental health difficulties – IT issues

-          Generally, services were fragmented based on client groups rather than based on carers – not making the best use of our resources

 

Information and Advice

-          Training for Carers – new training booklet was re-printed by Direction Team and was on display at Carers Corner

-          Carers directory was being printed in the New Year (free and would be updated regularly) and also available on Connect to Support

-          Voluntary and Community Services directory almost complete – would be put on Connect to Support and printed on request

 

Other Information

-          So far not seen an increase in assessments (was predicted up to 5,357 carers)

-          Assessment/recording tracking of carers would be through Liquid Logic (from mid next year) – still to be worked through

-          Delegated Carers budget based on RAS (this was a budget pressure) – work to be undertaken on this

-          5,627 clients on Service and 3,192 had an NHS number recorded

 

Discussion ensued with the following issues raised/clarified:-

 

·           That the recommendations from the Scrutiny Review of Support for Carers will feed in to the development of the Carers Strategy

 

·           Consultation and engagement would take place every 4-6 months to track progress of the Strategy.  Once embedded the feedback would be used to ascertain if it was making a difference

 

·           More work was required on the Carers Emergency Scheme as to how carers who had used it were finding the Scheme.  It was suggested that a covering letter could be included from RDaSH asking if a carer wanted to join the Council’s Scheme

 

·           In terms of how the agencies were joined up, a meeting had taken place recently with the Carers Worker for Mental Health.  More work was required to understand what the problem was 

 

·           There was a lot of mistrust of the Council and statutory bodies generally by carers especially by those that had fought the system all their lives.  However, if a carer trusted a particular organisation and they were able to carry out the assessment and draw down the resources on the back of it, that would increase the numbers.  Where there were carers who did not want an assessment, a whole family assessment would pick up on the needs/requirements of the carer

 

·           Work was ongoing to develop a Health and Social Care Portal for Rotherham in terms of getting the different areas and systems working together.  At the moment it very much concentrated upon the Foundation Trust systems so the question had been asked about integrating it with the Social Care and RDaSH systems.  The plan was to look at it but as there was to be a move to the new Social Care system it was not appropriate to do so at the current time.  There had been a discussion regarding the recording of Mental Health data more generally onto Social Care systems; Liquid Logic had been requested to ascertain how other authorities record such information

 

·           There was a section within the Strategy on young carers.  The Strategy would focus on people who were caring for an adult regardless of the age of that person doing the caring.  It was not looking at parent/carers at the moment to keep it reasonably defined

 

·           The long term view would be holistic family assessment but would start with family assessments for adults and would include young carers

 

·           There would be a separate consultation with young carers as much of the support networks were around adult carers and older persons carers

 

·           The Mental Health Carers Worker had carried out a lot of work going around the Teams and Hospital Wards promoting the work of carers.  The idea of Carers Corner had always been to be the central point for all carers in Rotherham and, if that was right, everybody would know about it and have access to the information for all groups

 

·           The Carers Resilience Service, a pilot service, had just started to work in GP practices to provide information from the practice.  It was part of the Strategy to get to as many places as possible where people might access the Service

 

·           Liquid Logic would enable members of the public to self-assess and self-provide the information.  It was felt that the Liquid Logic portal was the appropriate place as it was a public portal and the information could be fed through to the statistical returns

 

·           Other areas of the country had set up Service Level Agreements to pay other organisations to carry out carers assessments. 

 

·           Outreach work would be part of the ongoing work.  All the issues with regard to accessing hard to reach groups, engagement, promotion would form part of the regular engagement sessions within the implementation part of the Strategy. 

 

·           The Council was now committed to working with carers

 

·           Adult Social Care in Rotherham was not where it should be generally.  In terms of implementation of the Care Act, there was a development programme around the need to change Adult Social Care which carers were part of.  The Liquid Logic changes were something that had come off the back of the review of Children’s Services, which Adult Services had then come on board, and having the one system for the whole Council.  The implementation date was July; the existing system was not sufficiently flexible.  Carers had been flagged in terms of the Resource Allocation System but  care packages would be looked at first and then carers

 

·           Work was also taking place on how the customer journey could be improved with the development of a single point of access for Rotherham – not just for carers but a single number for all Social Care in Rotherham.  An initial meeting had taken place with officers from the Council, Foundation Trust, CCG and RDaSH (both Learning Disability and Mental Health) to discuss, in principle, a single point of access for Rotherham.   There were different interpretations of a “single point of access” and the meeting had discussed a shared understanding of what it was.  The development group would meet again in January, 2016, to work up, ascertain the appetite for and how it might work for a single access point.  It would have a positive impact on carers

 

·           The current carers’ budget covered Carers Officers who were in Mental Health, the Team at Carers Corner, the building costs of Carers Corner as well as carers’ monies that came out of the General Purchasing budget which included items such as home care for carers, Carers Emergency Scheme etc.  There was no specific carers’ budget.  When developing the Resource Allocation System it was one of the things required but not simple to do.  Carers would still potentially need support and breaks for the person they cared for and it was hoped to have a separate Wellbeing budget.  It had been flagged in the Adult Social Care internal budget strategy group that it needed to be included as a pressure.  It was an invest to save because if a carer was supported to care for longer than would have then it would have a knock on effect on other budgets

 

·           It would be a decision for the Council as to whether to apply the 2% precept increase to support Adult Social Care.  The final details were still awaited for analysis

 

Sarah was thanked for her presentation.

 

Resolved:-  (1)  That the information provided about the development of a new Carers Strategy be noted.

 

(2)  That the draft Strategy be submitted to a future meeting of the Health Select Commission.

 

(3)  That further information be submitted before the 17^th December, 2015, Select Commission meeting.