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 20 March 2024 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.

Sue Evans, Deputy Regional Director Llais Cymru

Susan Evans, Deputy Regional Director of Llais Cymru attended to present to the Panel and answer questions, stating it is a statutory organisation set up by the Welsh Government and replaces Community Health Councils. It enables a public voice on Health and Social Care matters.

Discussion Points:

·       Panel informed that at events, they ask questions and listen as they want to gather as much information as possible on what is going on out in the community. 

·       Panel suggested it may be useful for Llais to look up a report on the obstetrics service in Swansea which was written some time ago.

·       Panel Member agreed to be contacted by Llais to help with accessing ethnic minority communities to get feedback on their experience of dementia and Alzheimer’s.

·       In relation to the maternity review, Panel suggested Llais may want to take a closer look at a piece of work Swansea University has just done on ethnic minority women and childbirth. Informed Llais will contact the University for more information.

·       Director of Social Services suggested that going forward Llais flag up to the Panel any areas of possible concern they are picking up through their ‘patient voice’ work and the Panel can then consider these as possible areas of future inquiry.

·       Panel heard how Swansea is doing in terms of its responsibilities in supporting the development of Llais. Informed Llais is making good progress in how it is working with Swansea Council. 

·       Panel discussed the increase in number of children with additional learning needs and the additional waiting times this has caused.  Heard this is one of the main reasons for Llais starting a piece of work on children and young people’s mental health from September. 

·       Convener stated that awareness about Llais needs to be raised with the general public.  Hopefully the Panel and councillors will be able to promote it a little bit more and help Llais to get more volunteers.

Actions:

·       Panel Member contact details to be provided to Llais regarding accessing ethnic minority communities about dementia.

Invited to attend:

Louise Gibbard, Cabinet Member for Care Services

David Howes, Director of Social Services

Amy Hawkins, Head of Adult Services and Tackling Poverty

Helen St John, Head of Integrated Community Services

Louise Gibbard, Cabinet Member for Care Services and Hayley Gwilliam, Cabinet Member for Community Support attended to brief the Panel on this issue and answer questions. 

Discussion Points:

·       In terms of Local Area Coordinators (LACs), Panel heard they have managed to achieve full coverage across Swansea, but due to funding pressures LACs now have bigger areas to cover.  Panel stated they need to be informed as soon as possible about the changes for their areas in terms of LACs. 

·       Panel pleased to hear Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW) had been in assessing Adult Services and initial verbal feedback is really positive. Report to be brought to a future meeting.

·       Informed the corporate priorities have now been incorporated into the Corporate Plan 2023-28, so may report on this in a different way next year.

·       Panel had previously discussed Network Theory at a Panel meeting. Panel queried if there was any progress with colleagues in being able to create networks for a particular purpose. Heard they have good networks but have not looked at it on a theoretical basis in terms of network theory, but they will follow it up.

Actions:

·       Details of LACs, areas covered and link to website to be shared with the Panel.

Panel Members reviewed their year on the Adult Services Panel and made the following comments:

• Suggest pre-meetings are held when it would be useful to do so.

·       Possible topics for future work plan –

1.    How we deal with people with addictions, homelessness etc. – Panel Member feels there is an absence of referring to homelessness, alcohol and drug addiction, point of contact for those leaving prison and asylum seekers at the Panel.  Feels there is concern about these issues within the city centre and as a council we should address this situation.   It was suggested that this may be best dealt with as a scrutiny inquiry or working group.

2.    Adult Mental Health - Effects, provision, what the Authority does to help in the community.  There has been a huge increase in mental health.  Need to look at the effects of it, what services we have got and if we as an Authority can do anything in the communities to support and help people.  Panel Member does not think we are joining up all that is going on in the community in this area. 

3.    Adult Residential Care – Panel Member suggests a specific item on this because of the importance it has with the Authority and to the public. Many years ago a project was done on the cost of Residential Care, how it fits in with private sector / public sector and how our domiciliary care fitted into that. 

Actions:

• Add to future work plan items on ‘Implementation of the Regional Partnership Board’s Mental Health Strategy’ and ‘Residential Care’.
• Panel Member to raise issue of ‘How we deal with people with addictions/homelessness etc’ at work planning conference as possible inquiry / working group.