Agenda item

The Committee considered a report of the Director of Adults and Communities which provided information and sought comment on the Framework for Integrated Personalised Care, which was intended to supersede the Health and Social Care Protocol (2014).  A copy of the report marked ‘Agenda Item 11’, is filed with these minutes.

Arising from discussion the following points arose:

(i)      In response to a query regarding the proposed governance arrangements and the process for taking decisions quickly for the benefit of service users, the Director confirmed that overall governance arrangements for Leicestershire would be through the Health and Wellbeing Board whose membership included both NHS and County Council representatives. This would therefore provide for decision making to be coordinated between local partner organisations. The Board was also supported by a sub-group, whose membership included key service provider representatives, which took account of decisions made by the Health and Wellbeing Board to ensure these were fed into operational practices. Once the Framework was approved and came into effect it was thought unlikely there would be any disruptions or barriers to how health and care services were delivered to individual service users.

(ii)    The new Framework would build on existing practices and it was expected to improve service delivery outcomes for service users. In terms of how these outcomes would be monitored, the Director advised that bi-weekly meetings already took place between health and care partners across LLR under existing arrangements and these would continue under the new Framework. Members noted that such meetings provided an opportunity for individual cases to be reviewed and care responsibilities and costs apportioned to the appropriate organisation(s).

(iii)   Members noted that a shared care form would be generated for Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) staff to consider how to apportion responsibilities and costs between Health and Adult Social Care, and that the Adult Social Care Management System had a funding mechanism built in to support that process.  The Director highlighted that staff across the MDTs would work to ensure that services were coordinated effectively so that service users that were entitled to free public healthcare were not charged for healthcare related tasks. This element would also be picked up as part of the service user review process and had been built into delivery and customer expectations service models which would require staff to ask questions to ensure the service being received was efficient and at the level expected.

(iv)   The way costs were budgeted for and apportioned between Health and Care depended on the level of service required. For example, if a person’s social care needs could be met by the Council with two calls a day but there were additional health related elements that required a third call these may be included onto the Council’s system for an invoice to be issued to charge the relevant NHS Clinical Commissioning Group for the third call.  In other cases, it may be that the level of service provided was required to be shared equally between both organisations and therefore costs were apportioned in an equal way.

(v)    Members were assured that staff would continue to receive appropriate training and be assessed for competency for any task they were required to undertake. Currently there were two levels of training that staff in the social care workforce could receive. Training at the first level was provided to all staff members undertaking a role in social care and designed for those carrying out generic tasks. Training at the second level was an enhanced level of training that was designed around individual service user needs to enable staff to carry out specific tasks to support those needs.

RESOLVED:

(a)    That the update on the work undertaken to review the existing Health and Social Care Protocol (2014) and proposals to supersede it with a new Framework for Integrated Personalised Care be noted.

(b)    That the Director be requested to give consideration to the comments now raised.