Agenda and minutes

www.swansea.gov.uk/disclosuresofinterests

Chris Holley declared a personal interest.

No declarations were made.

To receive the minutes of the previous meeting(s) and agree as an accurate record.

Panel agreed the Minutes of the meeting on 12 December 2023 as an accurate record of the meeting.

Questions must be submitted in writing, no later than noon on the working day prior to the meeting. Questions must relate to items on the agenda. Questions will be dealt with in a 10-minute period.

No questions were received.

Invited to attend:

Amy Hawkins, Head of Adult Services and Tackling Poverty

Helen St John, Head of Integrated Community Services

Lucy Friday, Principal Officer Transformation

Louise Gibbard, Cabinet Member for Care Services and relevant officers attended to provide an update on progress for the three main themes under the Programme and the proposed focus for 2024-25.

Discussion Points:

·       Panel queried if there are trained nurses or trained carers in care homes, and if there is some specialist training.  Informed internal residential homes are ‘care’ homes and if people are assessed with having nursing needs, they would be supported to go into nursing provision that has medical support.  Heard teams around residential care deal with really complex care needs and are trained in a whole suite of support.

·       Panel queried how the Department is getting everyone to work together to coordinate who needs early help.  Heard in terms of communication channels, there has been a lot of re-educating internal staff and making sure partners understand what else it out there.

·       Panel discussed the Common Access Point (CAP).  There has been an improvement in the last nine months with 28% of enquiries into CAP being signed off or closed at point of contact. Panel pleased to see this.

·       Panel asked for clarification of what ‘just checking’ means in assistive technology.  Heard it has been in operation for some time but on a small scale.  Over the last 12 months it has been pushed as an option.  it is a series of monitors that can go into a person’s home to monitor their movements and can help inform an assessment.

·       For people being maintained in their own homes, Panel queried how internal domiciliary care staff are helped to deal with individuals who may need extra care or might be more challenging. Informed the Service is being refocussed as a result of feedback from staff, so there is more support from the wider community and staff have also received training and have regular supervision.  External commissioned providers have checks and monitoring in terms of quality and standards and they are all registered via Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW). 

·       Panel queried if there is a role for GPs within the Early Help and Prevention process.  Heard there is a role but not sure where the link is and some GP clusters are better on this than others. 

·       Panel asked if there is a reliance on agency staff in the carer’s role.  Informed that internally agency staff are not used for domiciliary care.  Instead, there is a reliance on staff to do overtime and cover gaps/sickness.

·       In terms of the re-tendering process for externally commissioned domiciliary care, Panel assured external providers are not being expected to do more, the Council is having to re-tender to ensure compliance with processes.  Will have to await the conclusion of the tendering process to find out if more expensive.

·       Panel discussed how the Service wants people to live independently and look after themselves more and queried if there are any downsides to this. Heard it is a very individual approach, some people want to be in their own home whilst others thrive in more of a community setting of a residential home. 

·       Panel discussed domiciliary care in rural areas and asked about progress in the establishment of micro enterprises to provide this service, particularly in rural areas and making use of direct payments. Heard the number of direct payments is up and there are more micro enterprises and social enterprises.  The Service promotes their development via SCVS and they hold a directory. 

Invited to attend:

Hayley Gwilliam, Cabinet Member for Community

Lee Cambule, Tackling Poverty Service Manager

Jon Franklin, Local Area Coordination Manager

Hayley Gwilliam, Cabinet Member for Community Support and relevant officers attended to present an update to the Panel and share some examples of the impact Local Area Coordinators (LACs) have made. Full impact report for 2023-24 has been drafted and the final version will be shared with scrutiny at a later date.

Discussion Points:

·       Panel expressed concern about the possible loss of LAC posts due to financial pressures and requested more information.  Informed the Service is currently out to staff consultation due to the impact of funding of the LAC Team.  Heard costs have increased, there has been no cut to Council funding for 2024-25, but it is flat, and there has been a reduction in grant funding, which makes up 60% of the funding.  Panel noted no decisions have been made yet and there are a number of things being considered, including criteria and geography.

·       Panel requested a breakdown of costs, including how the funding is distributed, where funding comes and the consequential impact of LACs.  Panel feels some of the cost analysis about beneficial savings would be very helpful in providing evidence of the benefit of LAC.

·       Panel asked for a guarantee there will still be full coverage of LAC across the Swansea City Council area. Informed this is part of what has to be considered.

·       Panel feels LACs have been doing an excellent job and have made a huge difference.  Panel Members strongly emphasised they are against losing any LAC posts. 

Actions:

·       Breakdown of figures for Local Area Coordination, as detailed above, to be provided to the Panel.

Panel considered the work plan and noted items for the next meeting.