Agenda and minutes

Venue: Committee Room 1 - Wallasey Town Hall. View directions

Contact: Dan Sharples, Democracy Business Manager  Tel: 0151 666 3791 email:  danielsharples@wirral.gov.uk

Media

Items
No. Item

54.

Welcome and Introductions

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Minutes:

The Chair welcomed attendees and viewers to the meeting and reminded everyone that the meeting was webcast and retained on the Council’s website for two years.

55.

Apologies

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Minutes:

No apologies for absense were received.

56.

Member Declarations of Interest

Members are asked to consider whether they have any disclosable pecuniary interests and/or any other relevant interest in connection with any item(s) on this agenda and, if so, to declare them and state the nature of the interest.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Members were asked to declare any disclosable pecuniary interests and any other relevant interest and to state the nature of the interest.

 

The following declarations were made:

 

Councillor
Mary Jordan

Personal interest by virtue of her employment in the NHS, her son’s employment in the NHS and her involvement as a trustee for ‘Incubabies’.

Councillor
Angela Davies

Pecuniary interest in item 5 by virtue of her employment with Cheshire and Wirral Partnership.

Councillor
Tracy Elzeiny

Personal interest by virtue of her employment in the NHS.

Councillor
Yvonne Nolan

Personal interest by virtue of her role as a governor of Clatterbridge Cancer Centre and Cheshire and Wirral Partnership.

Councillor
Clare O’Hagan

Personal interest by virtue of her employment in the NHS.

Jo Bird

Personal interest by virtue of a family member’s employment in Social Care.

Cherry Povall

Personal interest by virtue of her role as a trustee for ‘Incubabies’.

 

 

 

57.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 225 KB

To approve the accuracy of the minutes of the meetings held on 11th and 24th October.

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Resolved – That the minutes of the meeting held on 11th and 24th October be approved and adopted as a correct record.

58.

Public Questions

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Minutes:

The chair informed Members that three public questions had been received.

 

Mr John Brace asked a question relating to the Autism Act 2009 which required Minister to set out a strategy (known as the autism strategy) for meeting the needs of adults in England with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Mr Brace asked how the Council tailors its social services function for adults with an autism spectrum disorder in 7 key areas. Mr Brace was informed that a written answer would be supplied.

 

Two questions were asked by the organisation Level 80. The first question pertained to making financial assessments and invoicing more accessible for people on the autistic spectrum. The chair advised that a written response to this question would be supplied.

 

The final question asked by Level 80 was are Wirral Council doing to encourage people to work in the area of social case. The Chair responded to say that work had been undertaken by the Committee to support recruitment and fund the domiciliary care sector. This includes paying the real living wage of £11ph.

 

 

59.

Direct Payments Review pdf icon PDF 401 KB

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Minutes:

The Lead Commissioner, Integrated Services presented the report of the Director of Care and Place. The report advised Members that it was a statutory duty as defined by the Care Act 2014 to offer a person a Direct Payment as a cash alternative to a directly commissioned care and support service where a person has been assessed as having eligible needs. This applied both to carers and people in need of care and support. The Children Act also placed a duty on Local Authorities to offer a Direct Payment to disabled children.

 

The report detailed the outcome of a review previously agreed by Adult Social Care and Public Health Committee  in March 2022 where it was noted that the number of people and carers in receipt of a Direct Payment was relatively low. The review had been a collaborative exercise and included, as equal partners, officers of the Council, people with lived experience, voluntary sector providers and representatives from Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (CWP) and the Wirral Community Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust (WCHCFT).

 

The Lead Commissioner, Integrated Services advised Members that there are 2795 people eligible for social care in Wirral and out of this number 535 are in receipt of direct payment and noted that it is essential that that position change. Several examples were given to the Committee to explain how transformative this service can be to people’s lives.

 

Members queried the possible introduction of a qualification for carers and personal assistants with a high level of skill, and how this could attract a higher rate of pay, collaboration with Children’s services over transition and the use of a register of available support for service users.

 

Resolved – That,

 

(1). Direct Payment hourly rates for Personal Assistants for adults be aligned to that of a Domiciliary Care Worker from April 2023 be approved.

 

(2). Work commences towards reconciling the Direct Payment hourly rates for adults and children.

 

 

(3). A future report be brought to this committee exploring the options of either providing,

 

(A) A Council Coordinated Personal Assistant register

 

(B) Tendering for a full Direct Payment Service to include a Personal Assistant Register, Payroll, a Managed Accounts Service and Information and Advice

 

60.

Information and Advice Service Commission pdf icon PDF 328 KB

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Minutes:

The Director of Public Health presented the report which sought agreement from the Adult Social Care and Public Health Committee to progress proposed commissioning intentions for information and advice services. The report sets out the requirement for a local information and advice service to be recommissioned from April 2024, as a joint commission. The current service is experiencing increasing demand, supporting residents and communities with a wide range of issues.

 

The report set out the proposed funding model for the re-commission, including use of the Public Health Grant, given the strong links between the service outcomes, and improved population health. As part of the re-commissioning process, the potential to further integrate other information and advice services in Wirral will be explored. Evaluation undertaken to date would shape the delivery and outcomes of this recommission, and an evaluation of the new service will take place to inform future recommissions.

 

Members queried existing services available in Wirral currently, as well as access to information and advice though telephone services, though Citizens Advice Bureau, Libraries and Once Stop Shops. Questions around budget provisions and appointments waiting times were also asked by the committee. Members requested that further information be brought back to Committee, outlining existing provision and commissioning specification.

 

On a motion by Cllr Mary Jordan, Seconded by Cllr Ivan Camphor it was -

 

Resolved – That

 

 

(1)  The Director of Public Health be authorised to re-commission the Wirral Information and Advice service totalling up to £7,000,000 (£1,400,000 per annum) for a three-year contract (1st April 2024 – 31st March 2027) with the option of a one year plus further one year extension.

 

 

(2)  A report be bought back to the committee at a future date, mapping existing service provision and specification development, before the service goes out to tender.

 

(3)  Delegated authority be given to the Director of Public Health to award the tender to the successful bidder following the tender process

 

 

61.

Adult Social Care and Public Health 2022/23 Q2 Budget Monitoring pdf icon PDF 695 KB

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Minutes:

The Director of Care and Health introduced the report which set out the financial monitoring information for the Adult Social Care and Public Health Committee as at Quarter 2 (1 Apr – 30 Sep) 2022/23.

 

The report provided Members with an overview of budget performance for this area of activity, including progress on the delivery of the 2022/23 saving programme and a summary of reserves to enable the Committee to take ownership of the budgets and provide robust challenge and scrutiny to Officers on the performance of those budgets.

 

Members were informed that at the end of Quarter 2, there is a forecast adverse position of £0.629m on the Committees net revenue budget of £115.107m with mitigations to balance the budget at year end. This position was based on activity to date, projected trends in income and expenditure and potential mitigation to offset areas of adverse variance.

 

Committee noted that officers would be looking to draw down £567k of the Social Care Grant held in corporate reserves. The main driver of the budget pressures was an increase in support packages to enable discharge from hospital, primarily into residential and nursing care. This is alongside a large increase of people requiring residential care, and a reduction in domiciliary care. Additional resources had been provided by the Department of Health and Social Care, to support winter pressures. Members were informed that Wirral’s allocation of this funding was £1.5m

 

Resolved – That

 

(1) the projected adverse revenue position at Quarter 2 be noted.

(2) progress on delivery of the 2022/23 savings programme at Quarter 2 be noted.

(3) the reserves allocated to the Committee for future one-off commitments be noted.

(4) the forecast level of reserves at Quarter 2  be noted.

(5) the current activity profiles from 2017 to Quarter 2 of 2022/23 be noted.

 

62.

Adult Social Care and Public Health Performance Report pdf icon PDF 279 KB

The PDF file below may not be suitable to view for people with disabilities, users of assistive technology or mobile phone devices.?Please contact committeeservices@wirral.gov.uk  if you would like this document in an accessible format.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Assistant Director of Adult Care and Health presented the report of the Director of Adult Care and Health. The report provided Committee with a performance update in relation to Adult Social Care and Public Health. The report was designed based on discussion with Members through working group activity. A further workshop had been held in 2022 and Members had provided input on the datasets received by the Committee which will be reflected in future performance monitoring reports.

 

Members were informed that care home placements were still running at a higher level then previously reported. However, there is a stabilisation of the vacancy rate in this sector so there is still capacity. The number of closures for outbreak management reasons was currently at 3. In terms of domiciliary care, over the last 4 months there has been an incremental increase in capacity within the domiciliary care sector. The waiting list for Domiciliary care packages had also reduced significantly. Officers also confirmed that they would be considering careful use of the £1.5m winter discharge funding that is available.

 

Regarding social care and social work delivery, there was no significant change in KPI for the community trust of Cheshire and Wirral partnership trust, but energy is being focussed on areas which needed improvement.

 

Members queried whether data could be provided on the Clatterbridge Intermediate Care beds which they noted as a priority and were advised that this would be included within the next performance data set brought to committee. Also discussed was the numbers of overall service users, discharge rates of medically optimised people and pressure on General Practice.

 

Resolved – that the content of the report be noted 

63.

Care Home Quality Wirral

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Director of Public Health presented the report of the Director of Health and Care, which provided Committee with an update regarding Care Home Quality across Wirral.

 

The report focussed on three key areas,

 

1. Current position in terms of Care Quality Commission (CQC) assessment status of care homes in Wirral and comparable benchmarking as of July 2022.

 

2. An overview of how the quality of the care home provision in Wirral is managed.

 

3. The strategy to improve and manage the market quality moving forward.

 

Members were informed that out of a total of 116 care homes in Wirral, 69 are rated good and 47 require improvement. None are currently rated as outstanding. Comparted to neighbouring authorities across the city region, Wirral has almost double the amount of care homes which require improvement.

 

Member of the Committee discussed the report in detail, with queries regarding the effectiveness of the Provider Assessment and Market Management Solution (PAMMS) tool and were informed that a greater number of local authorities were starting to use it.

 

It was noted that the improvement journey would take time, but officers were putting together a team to tackle this.

 

Also queried was the improvement journey, with Members of the committee wanting to know what comparable Authorities were doing to improve. Requests for further information were made, including a detailed action plan, information of the level of complaints (including areas). Members also requested a progress report come back to Committee to update on improvements. 

 

On a motion by Councillor Nolan and seconded by Councillor Jordan it was,

 

Resolved – that

 

(1)  The contents of the report be noted

 

(2)  A progress report be brought back to the committee

 

64.

Community Connector Service pdf icon PDF 326 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Director of Public Health introduced the report which provided an update to the Committee on the current Community Connector service commissioned by Wirral Council. The report provided an overview of the Community Connector Service, its performance to date, the important role the service played in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and how the service will continue to evolve moving forwards.

 

The Community Connector service was commissioned in response to local insight undertaken to understand the support communities required to address health related worklessness in the borough.

 

Members were presented with a short video which was included within the report. They were advised that the service was commissioned to support referrals from statutory services and provide “door knocking” support. Service users had been supported into volunteering, further education and employment.

 

The Committee noted their appreciation of the service and queried how they could directly support the community by providing practical resources such as warm packs during the cost-of-living crisis. It was agreed that discussions should be had with the Community Connector service regarding signposting to warm hubs, handing out warm packs

 

On a motion by Councillor Nolan, seconded by Councillor Camphor it was,

 

Resolved – that

 

(1)  The report on community connectors be noted.

(2)  That officers work with Community Connectors to see if practical support can be introduced to help with the cost of living crisis.

 

 

 

 

65.

Adult Social Care and Health Committee Work Programme Update pdf icon PDF 379 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Head of Legal Services introduced the report of the Director of Law and Governance which provided the Committee with an opportunity to plan and review its work across the municipal year.

 

Resolved – that the Adult Social Care and Public Health Committee work programme for the remainder of the 2022/23 municipal year be noted.