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Adult Social Care Peer Challenge Week 16-19 June 2015
Dear colleague,
The Peer Challenge of Adult
Social Care with a focus on prevention has now concluded and this afternoon we
received feedback from the Peer
Team.
The final report will be structured
around the outcomes we hoped to get from the Peer Challenge and will
give us a great deal of food for thought over the coming weeks, with much to be
proud of, and insights we can learn from and use to improve further. However,
for today we wanted to focus on what was said about our frontline staff –
described in the review presentation as ‘the jewel in your crown’ – and the
frontline services we deliver, using the words of the Peer
Team:
- ‘Staff are proud to work for Devon County Council; are positive
and motivated; and genuinely care about the people they support – we saw this
time and again.’
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‘Your adult social care structure has clear focus on
integration, safeguarding, quality, prevention with strong voluntary sector
co-ordination.’
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‘You are a learning organisation, for example, in the
way you’ve responded to the case audit.'
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‘There
are significant opportunities for innovation across partnerships and we saw
great local working, with the integration agenda embraced by staff.’
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‘You
are Care Act-compliant in your approaches to assessment, review and the
assessment of carers.’
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‘Good
assessment practice was demonstrated with users and carers being treated with
dignity and respect, and outcome-focused practice evidenced.’
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‘The case file audit showed excellent outcomes and some
outstanding person-centred work.’
- ‘We saw examples of first class customer support and experience
in social care reablement.’
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‘The Community Enabling Service is delivering positive outcomes
and the team is very motivated.’
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‘Build on the great models of engagement you have,
your residents are willing and able…’
Strategically, the Peer
Team encouraged Devon County Council to use our political and officer leadership to work
across the health and social care system, to not compromise quality by making
cost savings in the wrong places, and to progress our prevention strategy and
its implementation; all things you’ll be able to read more about in their final
report.
The organisation of the Peer
Challenge went smoothly and the Peer
Team were complimentary about the welcome they have received in Devon and
the care that has gone into the preparation of their programme, so a big thank
you to all those involved – it has been a great team effort.
While those of you working in
regulated services such as Social Care Reablement are accustomed to such
scrutiny, for many of us working in commissioning and care management this is
the first time in some years we have had fellow professionals in health and
social care take an independent view of our work. It is gratifying they have
so
much positive feedback about
the work we do.
In their daily feedback to us
the Peer
Team regularly remarked on your professionalism. Colleagues were observed
in frontline practice all over the county and the Peer
Team found everyone they encountered to be motivated and committed, with
dignity and respect embedded into the way you support people so thank you again
for the day-in day-out work you do in supporting the people we serve.
We have been maintaining an archive of
communications as the focus of the review has been on the whole system of
health and care and involved staff across the council, our partners and
providers, and service users and their carers.
When we receive the report we
will publish this in our website. We have action planning sessions scheduled in
July and are also committed to publishing our action plan, with some of the Peer
Team returning in about six months to check on progress.
You can find out more
information about the Peer Challenge on our website:
https://new.devon.gov.uk/ascpeerchallenge/
Kind regards,
Jennie and Stuart
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