Agenda item

To inform Scrutiny Committee of the work undertaken by Adult Services on a day to day basis to allow effective scrutiny of the service.

Mrs Del Curtis, Director of People presented the Adult Services Overview Report and the Chairman invited questions from the Committee.

Members queried the take up of Personal Health Budgets and were informed that although a responsibility of the Clinical Commissioning Group, Personal Health Budgets were managed through the Direct Payments Team at the Council. Mrs Curtis advised that the take up of Personal Health Budgets had been slow and that funding would generally be used by people to purchase care.

Members discussed the Share Lives Short Break Project and raised concerns that without adaptions, accommodation would not be suitable for those with complex needs. In response to questions, Mrs Curtis advised that the Coopers Way accommodation had been specifically adapted to suit a range of complex needs and that she was not aware of any specific funding for carers to make adaptions to accommodation as part of the Shared Lives Service. The Committee requested to be provided with a detailed overview of all respite care available in Blackpool with the aim of ensuring adequate provision was available.

In response to further questions, Ms Gornall, Principal Social Worker and Head of Social Care advised the Committee that the Care Act 2014 had altered the way the level of respite care was determined and had amended how an individual’s needs would be measured in order to determine the level of respite to be provided.

The Committee noted the additional safeguarding information relating to those cared for in their own home, as requested at the previous meeting of the Committee, and queried if Councillor Collett, Cabinet Member for Health Inequalities and Adult Safeguarding was satisfied that the measures put in place in order to make improvements to the safety of those cared for at home were sufficient. Councillor Collett advised that he was satisfied that the Safeguarding Adults Board had recently appointed a suitable independent Chairman who would ensure that progress was made and that he was pleased with the progress made to date.

Members further queried the progress made in specific relation to concerns raised regarding the provision of medication by carers and was advised that Care at Home providers had also identified the provision of medication as a concern and, through a forum, had met with the Medication Management Pharmacist employed by the Council to address the concerns.

The Committee discussed the training provided to domiciliary care providers and noted that all training provided by the Council was optional, however, there was some training that was mandatory for all providers to undertake. In response to a question, Ms Gornall advised that training was targeted at providers who had had several safeguarding alerts raised and that there had been a 20% reduction in the number of safeguarding alerts to date in the current year.

The Committee noted the positive results of the Care Quality Commission inspections of care homes and requested that the inspection results for all regulated services be included in future reports to the Committee.

Members queried why there had been 94 terminated carer assessments and were informed that the majority of terminated assessments were due to recording and not practice.

Members discussed the summary of budget savings in relation to Adults Services and noted that limited information could be provided to the Committee at the current stage in the process. The Committee requested that more detail be provided to the next meeting to outline the impact of the cuts being made on service users.

The Committee agreed:

1.             To receive a detailed overview of all respite care in Blackpool in order to consider if there was sufficient provision.

2.             To request that inspection results for all regulated services be included in future Adult Services Overview Reports.

3.             To receive additional information at the next meeting of the Committee regarding the budget cuts to Adult Services and the impact of the cuts.