Agenda item

The Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Health, the Strategic Director of Adult Care, Housing and Public Health and the Assistant Director of Adult Care and Integration attended the meeting to provide a progress report on the Adult Social Care Restructure and Pathway.

In introducing the report, the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Health noted the restructure and pathway had been a success due to the clear vision that had been created at the outset.

The report noted that on 21 October 2019, the Council had implemented a new Adult Social Care operating structure and introduced new pathways for Rotherham residents to access information, guidance and support. At this time following a period of engagement and formal consultation, staff moved into new teams. The main aims of the new structure and pathways had been to ensure a more customer focussed and responsive offer to the residents of Rotherham, resulting in less waiting time at the point of contact; a stronger reablement offer that enabled more people to regain independence; increased continuity of council staff involved; a simpler structure for residents and partners to understand and to raise practice standards and overall performance.

The report provided an update on activity since the previous progress report to the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board that was received on 2 December 2020 (Minute No.262).

The Assistant Director of Adult Care and Integration noted that the new pathway had been only four months into its implementation when the pandemic arrived, and as such the service had been operating under the pandemic procedures as well as working in the new ways of the pathway. The Assistant Director advised that as such it was still difficult to ascertain clearly what the impact had been of the pandemic on the delivery of the pathway had been, noting that significant challenges related to the pandemic still remained.

The Assistant Director advised that since the last report had been received by the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board that an Internal Audit had been carried out in January 2021. The overall objective of the audit had been to provide independent and objective assurance that the Target Operating Model/Social Care Pathway was being applied correctly and consistently by social workers. The Assistant Director advised that the results of the audit had demonstrated that Substantial Assurance could be shown that the controls were operating effectively.

Members noted some difficulties that they had experienced regarding the first point of contact processes online and by the phone when accessing services. The Assistant Director advised that these concerns would be investigated.

Members asked for further information on issues around staff vacancies that had been highlighted in the report. The Assistant Director advised that the delivery model had been based on expected levels of demand, but as demand had increased there had been difficulties in ensuring that there were sufficient social workers in post. The Assistant Director assured members that action had been taken to ensure that extra staff had been brought in as needed in order to meet demand for services.

Members noted how the report stated that it was essential for staff to feel settled and confident in their roles and that the culture in the service had changed to be much more positive than it had been before. Members asked what had happened in the service to create this change. The Assistant Director advised that the new structure and related procedures had created a greater feeling of togetherness and purpose which had not been possible in the previous structure due to the disparate way in which it had been designed. The Assistant Director advised that the service was now clearly focused on supporting staff to provide the best possible service by focusing on each staff member’s particular skills.

Members noted the wide range of services provided by the service and asked for further information on how performance was monitored over the wide range of services. The Assistant Director advised that many of the services provided were statutory services with related methods of monitoring performance but advised that many of the services provided went over and above the statutory requirements. Members agreed that it would be beneficial to see both quantitative and qualitative information that showed how the Adult Care Service went over and above its statutory requirements.

Members asked for further information on the outputs that been achieved through the implementation of the new performance management framework. The Assistant Director advised that the performance framework had presented challenges to both staff and managers in its implementation, noting that it the framework was multipurposed in both ensuring a high quality and constantly improving service as well as managing staff and manager performance. The Assistant Director advised that the introduction of the framework had been a big cultural change for the service but assured members that it was now well embedded and was driving continuous improvement to how services were delivered.

Members asked whether it would be possible when service users were re-rereferred to the service whether they could be relocated to the same worker who they had been previously involved with to ensure continuity of service. The Strategic Director of Adult Care, Housing and Public Health advised that due to the size of the Adult Care Service this would not ne logistically possible, but assured members that information sharing processes were in place that ensured that when service users were re-referred for support that the allocated worker would have full knowledge of an individual’s history and needs. 

Members asked how far the experiences of service users went into the design of services. The Assistant Director advised that in addition to the outcomes of the investigations into when things had gone wrong feeding into service development, Huddle Boards and the Perform platform enabled feedback to be recorded daily which could then be analysed in order to ensure the best possible service delivery.

Members asked for further information on the issue of staff turnover, retention and vacant positions, and asked whether there had been any benchmarking activity conducted in order to establish how Rotherham compared to other local authorities. The Strategic Director advised that recruitment in the sector was a national issue and was being experienced by all local authorities. The Strategic Director noted that the restructure had created a number of new roles, but that due to the impact of the pandemic and changes to staff turnover with fewer staff across the sector looking to change jobs, recruitment to vacant posts had been more challenging.

The Chair thanked the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Health, the Strategic Director of Adult Care, Housing and Public Health and the Assistant Director of Adult Care and Integration for attending the meeting and answering member questions.

Resolved: -

1)    That the report be noted.

2)    That the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board liaise with the Strategic Director – Adult Care, Housing and Public Health and the Assistant Director - Adult Social Care and Integration on the focus of a future report to the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board on how the Adult Social Care service goes over and above statutory levels of service provision.