Council and councillors

To receive a verbal update from John Morley, Strategic Director – Adults and Health regarding the post Covid support given by Adult Social Care, carers and care homes including an update on service pressures, capacity and the impact upon services from the new care homes within Rutland.

A verbal update was received from John Morley, Strategic Director for Adults and Health and a short presentation from his senior management team (copy attached). During the discussion, the following points were noted:

·       John Morley thanked his team for all their hard work during the pandemic and stated how proud he was of all of them. He reminded attendees that the pandemic was not over and that many staff and services continued to work long hours with heavy workloads.

·       Department of Health and Social Care specific funding workstreams had been confirmed until March 2022 but came with very tight terms and conditions.

·       Two new care homes had opened in Rutland, which increased the number of care home beds by 140, an increase of 44%.  This has meant additional work for Adult Services, a bigger demand for care home staff and an increase in the number of vacancies within care homes.

·       Rutland now has enough care home beds to cover the county until 2043 assuming the same rate of demand, but this might entail an increase in the number of self-funders going into the care homes which the Local Authority might have to support in the long term; the cost of an extra three or four self-funders moving to Local Authority support could be an extra £100k per year.

·       During the pandemic, the housing service has seen an increase in the number of homeless people, domestic abuse cases and housing applications.  All were dealt with while the team transferred to a new electronic system.

·       Adults Social Care had seen safeguarding alerts rise by 41% from residential and care homes during the pandemic and this was expected to rise as the new care homes became fully occupied.

·       A new 7-days a week personalised support service for adults with a learning disability and/or autism has been established for the vulnerable adults within the community, who had previously attended the Brightways day opportunity service.

·       The Rise team had made over 1500 phone calls to those classed as vulnerable by their GP and manned the 24/7 emergency phone line which resulted Adult Services dealing with an additional 4-6 cases per month.

·       Community Care Services received approximately 76 cases a month from hospital discharge and still managed to ensure that 100% of all cases were assessed within two days of discharge.  The team also made 105 face-to-face visits resulting from track and trace alerts. 

·       The RISE team made 117 phone calls encouraging people to receive the Covid vaccination, made 61 welfare calls and took on between 25-50 new cases each month.  This resulted in an average 100 cases a month being dealt with by the Rise team. The Rise team also held 50 multi-disciplinary team meetings each month with the care homes to ensure that all staff and residents were safe.

·       There was and continues to be an increasing number of people contacting the Rise service and local food bank for assistance, either due to self-isolation or a reduction in income.

·       The national average for people who received reablement and required no further support was 79.5%.  In Rutland, this figure was 91%.  The national average for people who had received reablement and were still at home 90 days after discharge was 82%.  In Rutland, this figure was 93% and the team achieved 100% in September and October.

·       A successful ‘weekend working’ pilot was put in place for the Therapy Team and this service now runs 7-days/week with increased staff numbers and the provision of a better service for Rutland residents.

·       A personalised Falls Prevention Service was being piloted in care homes to help reduce the number of falls and so reduce the number of ambulance call outs and the number of safeguarding calls to Adult Services.

·       John reported that all the partners (Local Authority, NHS, CCG, Healthwatch etc) had worked together as one team during the pandemic.  He also confirmed that they had worked as one team in the creation of the Rutland Health and Wellbeing Strategy (Place Led Plan) – all whilst dealing with Covid and the huge impact the pandemic had upon health services.  This had resulted as Rutland being nationally recognised as a leader in this area of expertise.

·       The Committee Members passed on their thanks to John and all the staff within Adult Services for all their hard work and dedication over the past 18 months.

·       Councillor Walters asked if the Council had done enough to let the public know what Adult Services does and how much it has achieved?  John Morley stated that no, the team just gets on with the job but going forward the service needed to start showing the public what they do etc. so they can engage with residents to improve the services moving forward.

·       Dr Janet Underwood reported that older people believed that asking for help would mean them having to give up their independence and were worried that they would not be able to afford the help that they needed.  John Morley reported that this issue had been raised at the Health and Wellbeing Board and this area was now one of the main priorities for the Health and Wellbeing Strategy.  It was agreed that Janet would expand on the matter via email with John Morley but that she would not reveal specific details which could reveal identities etc and breach rules of confidentiality. 

ACTION: Janet Underwood

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Emma-Jane Perkins, Mat Wise, Karen Kibblewhite and Kim Sorsky left the meeting at 20:20

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