Councillor Chris Jones introduced a report by the Director of Adult Social Services about the continuing transformation of Adult Social Care Services and the procurement of market capability and capacity to enable people to remain at home through the provision of high quality Domiciliary Support Services and reablement at home support services that sought to maximise independence and continued self care with appropriate levels of support.

The Council had taken steps to transform the market by tendering for more flexible and responsive domiciliary and reablement services which provided value for money, taking into account the increasing integration of service delivery and commissioning between the Council and its partner organisation, especially Health.

The Cabinet noted that the tender exercise promoted and supported the principles of the ethical charter to drive quality and standards within both the domiciliary and reablement services.

The report confirmed the outcome of the Invitation to Tender and the tender process to establish a Contract Agreement (the contract) for the provision of Domiciliary Support Services and Reablement at Home Care Services.  This process had identified successful providers to deliver the services as specified through the procurement process and the report had recommended ratification of this outcome.

Appendix 1 to the report which contained exempt information in accordance with paragraph 3 of part 1 of schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972, would be considered in Part 2 of the meeting, once the press and public had been excluded, confirmed the details of the providers recommended for awaiting contracts (Minute No. 103 refers).

The report confirmed that the provision of Reablement at Home Care Services were part of a wider service configuration to develop and implement, with Health partners, a comprehensive Intermediate Care Service.  This would provide a dedicated number of Intermediate Nursing Care Home beds and Intermediate Care Multi-Disciplinary Team(s) complementary in nature to reablement at home care services to enable maximisation of people’s potential for independence and the prevention of inappropriate long term residential/nursing care home placements.  It was envisaged that this comprehensive range of intermediate care services would be fully implemented and effective from April 2014.

Domiciliary Support (also known as Home Care), was the support and help with personal care and household tasks for those that were frail and/or those with long term care needs.  Domiciliary Support made it possible for individuals to remain in their own homes, enabling them to maintain personal independence in their local community.  Homecare reablement sought to support people to maximise their level of independence and appropriately minimise their need for ongoing homecare support, as such this service ran hand in hand with the provision of domiciliary care support services and explained the joint tender process. 

Councillor Chris Jones thanked Jacqui Evans and her Team for their hard work in securing the tenders.

Councillor Phil Davies congratulated all those who had worked on this procurement exercise and referred to the contracts as being fantastic.  He thanked the Director of Adult Social Services, Jacqui Evans and everyone involved.  He told the Cabinet that this was a very good example and that he would like other Council contracts to be procured along similar lines.

RESOLVED: That

(1)   the granting of contracts to those Providers that have been successful in relation to the tendering process as identified in Appendix 1 (exempt from public report) be approved;

(2)  in making the recommendations in Appendix 1, it be noted that the Council has given consideration to the following factors and interdependencies:

·  Ability to achieve the required market shift at the pace required.

·  Monitoring market stability.

·  Ensuring robust responsiveness to meet the changing demand in the market place.

·  Ability to achieve good outcomes and experience for individuals.

·  Ability to achieve quality, continuity of care and support the principles of the ethical care charter.

·  Healthy market competition.