Agenda and minutes

www.swansea.gov.uk/disclosuresofinterests

Chris Holley and Jeff Jones declared a personal interest.

No declarations were made.

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

The Panel agreed the minutes of the meeting on 25 January 2022 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.

Kelly Gillings, Programme Director

Kelly Gillings, Programme Director, attended to present an update to the Panel including a summary of what has happened over the last year and a few examples of key work undertaken such as Work with carers; Support given to Children and Young People; Work around workforce; Patient Flow and Community Resilience and ongoing work in response to the pandemic.

Discussion Points:

·       Panel queried if there were any particular issues carers need support for.  Informed there has been huge pressure on carers throughout the pandemic and going forward there is a transformational programme around carers involving the Regional Partnership Board and partners to ensure they are supported all the time.

·       Panel queried why people are being given more direction on how to access direct payments.  Informed some people did not understand how to access the payments and also the remit for accessing direct payments was widened through pandemic to make them more widely available for different purposes.

·       Panel asked about the “cohorts” referred to in the report that were used to help shape the plans for Winter.  Programme Director agreed to provide the detail of how many cohorts were used and what each cohort consisted of.

·       Panel queried if in terms of the new funding regime for the Board, if anything alters the dynamics underpinning the process of transformation.  Informed the new regime gives a proper programme and project management which the previous regime did not have.

·       Regarding remodelling of acute health and community services, Panel asked if there is anything in the work the Partnership is doing so far that extends the right of fast and direct access to selected services that professional staff deem more appropriate for individuals instead of directing them to hospital A & E or medical assessment service. Informed a lot of work is being done around prevention that will stop people entering services in the first place.  Also heard about development work currently being undertaken and about a pilot being trialled through the Authority’s commissioning team in 2 zones in Swansea.  Panel requested further information on the pilot scheme.

·       In the report it states that joint recruitment of domiciliary care staff has taken place, whereby staff are employed by the Health Board and seconded to Local Authorities.  Panel queried why employment arrangements were set up this way and heard it was a pilot system to try and attract more staff as there was a view that there was more kudos with working for the Health Board.  This was not as successful as hoped and the Region has since moved back to recruiting locally.

Actions:

·       Detail of how many ‘cohorts’ were used and what each cohort consisted of to be provide to Panel.

·       Panel to see, if possible, either an early draft of the evaluation or an outline of the pilot scheme plus the likely date when the draft evaluation might emerge.  The Panel is especially interested to see how the client assessment process went and whether the ‘flying squad’ was able to reduce the use made of acute hospital assessment facilities.

Mark Child, Cabinet Member – Adult Care and Community Care Services

David Howes, Director of Social Services

Mark Child, Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Community Health Services and David Howes, Director of Social Services attended for this item and informed that Panel in terms of Covid, it is an improving picture.  It is expected that the current community Covid rates will continue as they are currently (still quite high but manageable) with all contingency plans still in place and a further drop off expected in April.  As well as Covid, there have been several storms recently, but despite this, all calls scheduled both internal and commissioned were made. The two Heads of Service are back attending Adult Services Panel meetings.  Both Heads of Service took up their roles just as Covid started and they have, together with their senior management teams, brought the Service through this as well as a further period of extreme pressure.

Dave Howes, Director of Social Services

Amy Hawkins, Interim Head of Adult Services

Helen St John, Interim Head of Integrated Community Services

Amy Hawkins, Interim Head of Adult Services and Helen St John, Interim Head of Integrated Services attended to brief the Panel on the Performance Highlight Report for December 2021.  They also provided verbal feedback on January’s performance data.

Discussion Points:

·       December was one of the most challenging months for the Service during the pandemic.  Operational services were still in emergency planning mode in January, but the position had improved by January and was more positive.

·       Number of individuals leaving the Service in January with no ongoing care needs was high for January which is excellent.  This is learning the Service must use to challenge the support it offers.

·       The Carers Centre has been commissioned to carry out some carers assessments for the Authority.

·       Bonymaen House recently received an unannounced CIW visit and inspection and the feedback was excellent.  The report will be shared with Scrutiny.

Actions:

·       Inspection Report on Bonymaen House to be shared with the Panel.

Panel Members reviewed the year 2021-22 and discussed four questions.

What went well? 

• Scrutiny was able to carry on during pandemic, even though it was at a limited level, and to work with officers to enable them to come and support scrutiny at a time when they were under extreme pressure.
• The degree of trust between officers within the organisation and between officers and elected members shone through.
• One concern of the Panel was the installation of the WCCIS system at the same time as Covid.  The way staff coped with this has been incredible.  A lot of recording work had to be undertaken manually because of the problems with the system and it is a real credit to staff that they still managed to cope.
• The positive development of the relationship between private care providers and our providers.
• How councillors have worked better together across parties. There was a job to do and everyone did it.  Found different ways of working and learnt new things and all Members improved their IT skills.

What did not go so well?

• Nothing that did not go well.  Could not have asked any more of staff

Has the Panel focussed on the right things?

• Did not have a choice.  Had to focus on Covid. 
• As a scrutiny panel we have supported as much as we could.  We recognized from a scrutiny point of view that we needed to minimise workload put on officers and we were able to bring joint meetings where it was appropriate to reduce the workload and ensure the Panel saw the essential items it needed to see in terms of its scrutiny role.  The Panel does have an important role to play, and the areas it concentrated on were the really important areas from a service point of view.  The Panel was happy it could see that these areas were not deteriorating to an extent that would cause concern from a safeguarding point of view.

·       Receiving updates on the management of covid gave Panel Members hope and enabled them to see how hard everyone was working in hugely challenging times.  The staff have been amazing.

What have we learnt that will help us with future AS Scrutiny?

• Might be useful to test the Panel’s own performance against other scrutiny panels eg Cardiff/Wrexham, to find out how much work they have done and the topics they have looked at and what improvements to the service they have delivered.
• Support for carers is very important including carers assessments.  Relied on them so much during pandemic.  Panel would like to have some feedback from carers about their experience of taking on this additional workload.  Item for Panel’s future work plan.
• Important to look at the situation of appointing staff and promoting the importance of care staff, as without these staff going in to care for people the Authority would have really struggled.
• Important to recognize the important role that Local Area Coordinators play.
• Scrutiny Panel has been really reactive to the situation. This is very positive.
• Increase in mental health issues is really important to be aware of.  Need to be reactive to need right now.  It is affecting all ages.