Welcome to the new 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.
 
Care Act – an update
The Department of Health’s (DH) Care Act consultation
received over 4000 responses including the Devon County Council (DCC) response. Thank you to all those that provided
comments. The DH is now considering the
responses and is due to publish final guidance and regulations week commencing
13th October 2014.
The second of three national stocktake exercises took place
this month coordinated by the Local Government Association. This helps the Government gauge the
preparedness of local government for the implementation of the Care Act and
assess where support might be needed. View
details of the DCC response to this stocktake exercise.
Preparations for the Care Act locally, led by the Care Act
Implementation Board, are continuing in earnest. The financial envelop to deliver the changes
for 2015/6 have been agreed by Corporate Leadership Team (CLT), and the work
packages that detail how DCC will meet its duties are going through final fine
tuning to ensure all of the ‘must dos’ as set out in guidance will be achieved.
If you would like to ask any questions or make any
suggestions as to how DCC should approach and implement the Care Act then
please email the Care
Act mailbox
Changes to Adult
Assessment Process
There will be changes to the adult assessment
process early in 2015. This will include
an updated version of the My Assessment form and changes to the way we
calculate a person’s estimated budget.
Watch out for up-to-date information on the project web page A Fair and Cost
Efficient RAS. A copy of the new My
Assessment and new RAS screens will be available on this page within the next
couple of weeks.
Also please ensure that you are booked onto one of the relevant PPaC
training courses in November and December using the following links:
-
Managers Sessions (Practice
Managers, Team Leaders, LD Managers and Deputies) – Click here to
book
-
Other Staff (Anyone who
assesses and/or performs a RAS. Also brokers) – Click here to book
** Managers are also encouraged to attend these sessions **
Estimated and Agreed
Budgets – residential and nursing care for older people
Please read this important guidance clarifying the recording of agreed budgets, for residential and nursing care,
in the My Plan.
New Police Vulnerable
Adult Referral Form
Devon and Cornwall Police are attempting to align their
processes to ensure consistency across all the partner agencies that they work
with. To help this they have created a
single referral form to be used by all who may refer
incidents to them.
The Safeguarding Adult social work hub will continue to make
referrals as required from information identified in Safeguarding Adult alerts,
but locality teams also need to be aware of the change to process, should they
need to refer. Further details,
including how to make a referral, are available here.
Change in Out of
Hours recording – further information
As reported in Issue 6 of the Adult Social Care Newsletter,
the Emergency Duty Team (EDT) has now begun to record their contacts in a
simple form, rather than by recording multiple observations. Following feedback from staff, please find
below some important process guidance about reassigning and closing this form.
For adult teams the new EDT Contact Form is reassigned from
EDT to Care Direct Plus (CDP). Where a
named Complex Care Team (CCT) Care Manager is involved, CDP will reassign the
contact form on to them. For the form to
be reassigned it needs to remain open.
Please could CCT workers receiving the form finish and save it, so that
it disappears from management reports and is closed on the client record once
dealt with.
For more information about the new EDT form, click here .
Independent Living Fund
– an update
The Independent
Living Fund (ILF) is due to close from June 2015, with funding being transferred
to Local Authorities. The funding will
not be ring-fenced and each recipient will require a full care management
review to identify eligible needs, so that the value of their Personal Budget
can be agreed, and a new support plan put in place prior to their ILF funding
ceasing. Further details, including the
actions required by frontline teams, are available here.
Workforce Development
Update
PPAC 3
Prior to your PPAC 3 training you will be receiving some pre
work to do. Please prioritise this as it
is extremely important information about the changes to the RAS.
College of Social
Work
Don't forget that DCC has corporate membership of the
college of social work - visit the Social Care
Workforce Development web pages to find out how to sign up.
HCPC re-registration
All social workers should have received information from the
HCPC about their re-registration. This
is a simple online process. Please do
this as soon as possible - you are
unable to be employed by DCC as a social worker if you are not registered. If anyone has been called to submit their
portfolio and would like any support in doing this please contact emma.pateman@devon.gov.uk
Occupational Therapy
student monies
If you have submitted a request to spend the money allocated
to your team for having an OT student these requests are being dealt with. If not please discuss with your team how you
might spend the money - it needs to be on something with an education or
training purpose. Contact emma.pateman@devon.gov.uk to get
the purchase authorised
Coming very soon ….the Social Care Workforce Development web
pages are being re-written in the new word press programme. They will be available to start using, via the
test site, within the next week or two before the final migration to the new
pages in the near future. Look out for
the link to the test site which will be emailed out soon.
Mental Capacity Law
newsletter – October edition
There have been several cases highlighted in the Court of
Protection, where disastrous consequences have occurred when legitimate safeguarding
concerns have led to actions being taken without proper lawful authority. Subsequent applications to the Court of
Protection have then been made which are founded on an entirely inadequate
forensic basis.
The most recent case involving
Somerset County Council serves to emphasise the message that acting on the
basis of safeguarding concerns alone gives no additional powers to local
authorities to intervene in the lives of vulnerable adults.
Whenever a situation arises where it is felt that a
vulnerable person should be removed from their family home, please seek advice
from the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards, Safeguarding Adults Team or the
County Solicitor’s legal team prior to commencing such actions, to ensure
potential Art 8 Human Right Act breaches are avoided.
The above case and many others are considered in this
month’s 39
Essex Street compendium of Court of Protection cases. It is well worth a read.
Opportunity to meet
the Chief Social Worker for adults on 19th November
Lyn Romeo, Chief Social Worker for adults in England, is visiting
Devon County Council. There is an
opportunity for managers and staff to meet informally with Lyn for a
conversation about opportunities and challenges facing Social Work for
adults.
Date: 19th November 2014
Time: 1-2pm
Venue: Coaver
Club at County Hall
If you wish to attend, please book a place on the learning
and development course booking system by selecting the following:
-
Course category – select “Working with People”
-
Sub category – select “Adult Care Management”
-
Course Title – select “Meet Lyn Romeo”
More information is available about Lyn Romeo
and the Chief Social Worker role
Living well with
Dementia (2014 – 2017)
The 'Living well with dementia in Devon – making progress' paper is now available on the CCG website
and represents our ongoing joint commitment to improving outcomes for people
with dementia and their carers. It lays
out our progress and achievements so far, sets out what we still need to do and
outlines how we will continue to report on progress.
Also available is a powerful and moving film produced by the
Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) which shows how it feels to have
dementia from the person’s own perspective.
Some of the filming took place in our Dementia Centre of Excellence,
Woodland Vale, Torrington, as well as in other parts of the country. To view the film click
here.
Adult Social Care
Newsletter – proof readers required
We all know that sometimes information that gets
communicated could be clearer.
As suggested by the Staff Reference Group we are looking for
two volunteers to proof read the
Adult Social Care Newsletter, to check for ambiguity, before it is sent to the
masses. Those who volunteer will be
electronically sent a copy of the newsletter to review, and asked to provide
feedback on any articles that are unclear and require re-working. To meet publication deadlines for the
newsletter, volunteers will have up to 3 working days from receipt of the
newsletter to review and provide
their feedback. We plan to trial this
for 3 months starting with the next newsletter due out early November. If the trial is successful, and the
volunteers are happy, we will continue.
To volunteer please send an email to the Adults Way We Work group mailbox
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