Issue - meetings

A report outlining the Warwickshire County Council Adult Social Care Strategy 2024-30 for approval.

Cabinet Portfolio Holder – Councillor Margaret Bell

Councillor Sue Markham outlined the report on behalf of the Portfolio Holder Councillor Margaret Bell.

She explained that significant engagement over the past year with people who use our services, their carers, social care staff and the wider market, had provided the focus areas for the proposed Adult Social Care Strategy.  She explained that this was a five year plan designed to meet key challenges and she signposted Members to the three strategic outcomes which would be delivered.

The outcomes would be delivered through five focus areas as outlined in the report and together would make a significant contribution to the achievement of Warwickshire being a County where ‘people could live their best lives’.  Delivery of the five focus areas would guide activity over the next five years, building on the Adult Social Care Innovation and Improvement programme.

Progress of the strategy would be monitored and reported to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee as required.

The Leader recognised that more Councils were designing strategies around a strength bases approach.

Councillor Roodhouse broadly supported the strategy’s direction and referred to the work that Healthwatch Warwickshire had undertaken earlier in the year.  He highlighted the self-help tools detailed in focus area one and hoped that officers would remain mindful of the digital divide.  Councillor Roodhouse reminded the meeting of the pressures being encountered with hospital discharges.  He also noted the development in new technologies but was mindful that many people still wanted human interaction.

Councillor Sarah Feeney felt there was a lot of encouraging work in the document and asked for clarification on how the Council was coping with the increased demand for mental health support.  She queried if the pressures on the NHS were being picked up by the Council and asked how it was engaging constructively with partners.

Councillor Andy Crump felt that scrutiny had an important role to play in monitoring how the strategy was working.  He also referred to the work undertaken by the Fire and Rescue Service within the community such as Safe & Well checks.  He reminded the meeting of the decision to drive money into prevention and protection through the Resourcing To Risk work.

Councillor Martin Watson welcomed the report which he felt was well written and detailed clearly what was going to be done, the impact and how the work would be measured.

Councillor Markham thanked Members for their positive comments and referred to the delivery plan which set out how outcomes would be measured.

In response to Councillor Feeney’s query, the Executive Director for Adult Social Care and Health, Becky Hale, noted the increased demand for mental health services.  However, she did not feel that the pressures across the NHS and local government were counteracting each other and gave assurance that the Section 75 joint arrangements were working well.  She referred to the recent Community Transformation update provided at the overview and scrutiny meeting which noted that there were more people able to access help.  Officers were monitoring this and working with CWPT  ...  view the full minutes text for item 2