Adult Social Care Newsletter - Issue 9 - Care Act, ASCOR, RAS, Carers consultation, Quality threshold for care placements, Day Care specification, Better Care Fund, WFD, Care First, Information Governance, Rowell Centre

Main header

Issue 9                                                                                                   18th December 2014 

Ppat

Welcome to the Adult Social Care Newsletter providing staff with one source of information relating to adult care management, social care provision and commissioning.

 If you are a manager please ensure these details are read and understood by your team members.

 If you know of any staff who are not receiving the newsletter, please let us know

Can’t find the Adult Social Care Process maps on the Source? Click here for a direct link to the maps and supporting guidance.


Sub-care-managementSub new

Care Act Update

 An update on recent Care Act activity.

 If you would like to ask any questions or make any suggestions as to how Devon should approach and implement the Care Act then please email the Care Act mailbox


Adult Social Care Operational Remodelling (ASCOR)

 The Adult Social Care Operational Remodelling (ASCOR) project was launched with your managers on 13th November and will affect the way we organise and deliver our operational services, building on our strengths and addressing areas for further development.

The Adult Social Care Leadership team will oversee the project which will develop and support the implementation of change in operational services, including the following areas:

  • Integration of learning disability, physical and sensory and older peoples care management models (i.e. affecting CDP/CCTs/LD teams)
  • The transition of safeguarding staff to operational teams and streamlining of processes
  • Implementation of principal Operations OT and SW roles
  • Revised arrangements for the management of the retained in-house services
  • Consideration of 7 day working to support hospital discharge

For further information click here 


A fair and affordable RAS

 The new RAS approach and associated changes to My Assessment are still scheduled to come into effect on Monday 9th February 2015.

 Many Thanks to everyone who has attended the training so far.  We have received much feedback which has been useful both in terms of refining training content and to inform future changes.

 If you assess adults and produce personal budgets via the RAS please ensure you attend a training session before Christmas.  You can book onto a course here.

 For more information about the forthcoming changes refer to the project web page.  On this page you can now see:

  • The new My Assessment
  • Prototypes of the new RAS screens
  • Changeover detail – what you will need to know about the changeover

Carers Consultation – Staff Briefing

At the end of November a consultation, ‘Carers and the Care Act in Devon’, went live and is available to the public.

This will support work that is currently in progress to develop an offer for carers that will fulfil the requirements of the Care Act 2014.  For further details click here


Quality threshold for residential and nursing care placements

 As of October 2014, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) has introduced a new rating framework.  Devon County Council has revised the threshold for commissioning new residential and nursing care placements in line with the new CQC ratings.

Where a residential or nursing care home has been rated by CQC as Inadequate, DCC will only commission placements once it is clear that required improvements have been made.

Information added to the homes vacancy database will indicate where homes do not meet the threshold for new placement to be commissioned.  For placements out of county, care managers should check the CQC rating for any home before discussing the options which may be available.

The Quality Improvement Team (qualityimprovement-mailbox@devon.gov.uk) will continue to offer support to providers and advice to operational managers.

Process maps explaining the role of the Quality Improvement Team, in relation to quality thresholds for commissioning residential and nursing placements, are now available.   These will shortly be added as a Viewpoint to the main Adult Social Care Practice maps for future reference.

The related policy “Quality and Safety of Commissioned Services” has been updated on the public website.


Day Care Specification – Recently launched

We have recently invited buildings based day services for adults to apply for membership of a Preferred Supplier List (PSL).

Providers can choose to join the list at any time, but we are encouraging early application to support the transition teams arranging alternative day service provision for people affected by the closure of DCC day centres.  It is encouraging that a number of new providers are emerging and that existing providers are modernising their offer to deliver a more personalised approach to these services.

Applications will be reviewed by a team including operational staff, commissioners and representatives of user and carer groups prior to accepting the provider onto the PSL.  If you would like to be involved in this process please contact sam.alford@devon.gov.uk.

The PSL will be available for care managers and CDP teams to view and will detail the services provided and the costs to assist you in your conversations with service users about how best to meet their needs and choices.  The list will also be useful for people considering how to use their direct payment.  This list will be updated on a regular basis (fortnightly initially, then monthly).  Performance and quality will be reviewed on a yearly basis at least; again involving representatives of service user and carer groups.

Members of the strategic commissioning team have started to work with a number of community and voluntary sector groups, and micro enterprises of various types, to develop the range of non-building based day services that will eventually complement the above PSL.  Again if you would like further information or are interested in getting involved in this work please contact paul.collinge@devon.gov.uk or sam.alford@devon.gov.uk.  Your interest and involvement will be most welcome.


Better Care Fund Information

For the latest information on the Devon Better Care Fund, please visit the Health and Well Being Board website.


Workforce Development Update

  • Web Pages - The new Workforce Development Social Care web pages are now live!  They contain a range of information and useful links.  We are always looking for feedback so if there is something that you would like to see on these pages please contact emma.pateman@devon.gov.uk
  • PPaC 2/4 TrainingClick here to book onto PPAC 2/4 training which will be focussed on the Care Act.  Practice Managers, Team Leaders and LD Deputy Managers will need to attend these main dates.  We will soon be publishing dates for Cluster Managers and LD Team Managers to attend additional training prior to the main dates.  In January we will publish some outline information provided prior to the training.
  • Calling all OT’s – Please remember that you need to do your ERA update and hoist competency update once every financial year.  If you have not done this since April 2014 you will need to book on again prior to the end of March 2015.  There have been enough dates advertised and many courses have been undersubscribed so please book on ASAP.

 Resources and Publications:

  • There is a new website out called ‘The Social Care Elf’ (http://www.thesocialcareelf.net).  The Social Care Elf features expert blogs that summarise reliable research, policy and guidance.  New posts appear every Tuesday and Thursday, and you can follow the Elf via email or social media.
  • Mental Capacity Law Newsletter – December Edition 

Care First Update

  • Changes to CareFirst passwords – Following testing we will not be able to implement the password changes expected in December, as the settings we have anticipated using don’t work.  We are awaiting advice from OLM, and are now expecting to implement mid-January.  Further information will be made available in the next Adult Social Care Newsletter.
  • System changes – For details of the system changes that are going to be affecting Adult services in December click here
  • CareFirst Training – *Reminder to Managers* - CareFirst training courses are scheduled on demand.  To avoid delay in training for new staff it is important for managers, (as soon as they know when a new member of staff is starting), to ensure staff are added to the corporate on-line booking system waiting list, so that a course can be scheduled prior to them starting, or link in directly with the Business Systems Training Manager. If a course is available then the manager should book their place direct.  Instructions are now available  on ‘How to create an account and book a place on CareFirst training’.  Please note for many courses there is a pre-requisite to have attended the ‘Generic Foundation Input’ course prior to attending another course.For more details about the courses on offer, see the CareFirst Training Catalogue.

Information Governance Update – Knowing when to share

 The information governance team receive many enquiries about when it is appropriate to share information and when it might not be.

Data Protection is not a barrier to effective sharing but asks that sharing be done professionally, legally and securely.

The team have published an extensive range of information and guides on sharing – on subjects such as consent, privacy and rights, and also some golden rules.  This information is available on the Knowing when to share pages on the Source.

If in doubt, please contact the Information Governance Team (accesstoinformation-mailbox@devon.gov.uk)


Sub reminders

Out of Office – What information to record

 Due to the nature of how we communicate nowadays, those who work within front line social care teams need to update a range of communication tools when they are going to be out of the office for a period of time e.g. the telephony voicemail, outlook email, CareFirst messaging.

Enabling colleagues and clients to know you are out of the office and unable to respond to queries/questions is imperative, not only to maintain good customer care, but to ensure any safeguarding concerns are managed in a timely way.

How do you enable people to know you are out of the office?  Instructions on how to set ‘out of office’ messages are now available 


Staff Directory

It remains important that you keep your entry in the Staff Directory up to date.  It is easy to do and only takes a few minutes.  In addition you are reminded that the mobile phone policy states that you should include your work mobile phone or blackberry number as standard so you can be contacted when necessary.  The people that administer our fleet of devices have asked that you do this to help them as well.


Sub finally

Bright future emerges out of uncertainty - Introducing the Rowell Centre

After announcing that The Chambers in Crediton which provided day care for adults with learning disabilities was proposed to close, both staff and service users faced an uncertain future.

Because of this staff decided to take matters into their own hands, and with inspiring results! (PDF version) 


logos