Agenda item

Briefing note of the Director of Adult Services

The Board considered a report of the Director of Adult Services, which informed of the forthcoming Adult Social Care peer challenge which was due to take place from 3 to 5 March 2020. Peer challenges were a key part of how social care continued to improve within the city.

The report indicated that the case file audit took place in October 2018.  The timescale between the case file audit and the peer challenge was longer than usual as Coventry had offered to be first to trial a new methodology for the case file audit that took a more rounded view of social work practice than could be gathered from an isolated review of 20 cases. 

In respect of establishing the Key Lines of Enquiry reference was made to the core Adult Social Care objective of supporting people to be as independent as possible within their own homes and communities.  This objective aligns with the system vision of: ‘We will do everything in our power to enable people across Coventry and Warwickshire to pursue happy, healthy lives and put people at the heart of everything we do’. Based on Adult Social Care performance data two areas where there could be potential to improve in order to further support the delivery of this core objective were identified from which the following two Key Lines of Enquiry were established:

(i) Admissions to residential care

A number of changes had been made to how people are supported at home in recent years. It is appropriate that the peer challenge team consider what else could be done in order to reduce levels of residential admissions and support people in their own communities.

(ii) Effectiveness of promoting independence.

The work to develop the promoting independence approach was ongoing and this would always be the case. Could the peer challenge team advise on further improvements in this area and what opportunities for improvement existed through working closer with internal and external stakeholders. 

Data to support these two Key Lines of Enquiry was set out at an appendix to the report.

The report also detailed recent and proposed improvements being introduced by Adult Social Care as the Department worked to improve the services for Coventry residents.

The Board were informed that for Adult Social Care there was no formal regulatory or inspection framework and there was no requirement to participate in a peer challenge as the challenge team were essentially ‘invited’ to undertake the challenge. These processes did however provide valuable learning opportunities for Adult Social Care and often the wider system.

The Board questioned the officer on a number of issues and responses were provided, matters raised included:

·  Clarification as to why Coventry was admitting more residents into residential care but numbers weren’t rising – was this because people were being supported to be independent and remain in their own home for longer or were people being admitted into care later than they should have been

·  How would the outcomes of the Peer Review Challenge compare and contrast with answers from service users

·  From the outcomes from different sources, how would trends be picked up

·  Clarification as to the figures included in the supporting data relating to the effectiveness of promoting independence in respect of older people receiving reablement/ rehabilitation on discharge from hospital. 

The Board were informed that Councillor Clifford would be meeting with the Peer Challenge Team during their forthcoming visit and Board members were welcome to attend this meeting. Also, the Board would be invited to attend the feedback session with the lead Director on 5th March to hear the Team’s initial thoughts on their findings.

RESOLVED that:

(1) The content of the report be noted and the Key Lines of Enquiry for the peer challenge be supported.

(2) The peer challenge process through meeting with the peer challenge team and providing scrutiny oversight of how findings from the review are progressed be supported.

(3) Members of Scrutiny Board (5) be invited to speak with members of the Peer Challenge Team during their forthcoming visit and also to attend the feedback session with the lead Director on 5th March.