Agenda item

5.1

The Board considered a report circulated by the Director of Adult Services, Sheffield City Council, providing a summary of performance across the NHS and social care in supporting older people with their health and wellbeing needs.

5.2

The report commented on and attached as appendices (a) the report of the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) Local System Review of Sheffield, carried out in Spring 2018, which focussed on three key areas in order to assess how well older people move through the health and care system, namely (i) maintaining the wellbeing of a person in usual place of residence, (ii) crisis management and (iii) “step down” (return to usual place of residence or admission to new place of residence, and (b) Sheffield’s Action Plan (“Making It Better”) which had been produced in response to the CQC’s Review, and agreed by partner organisations, to ensure continual improvement.

5.3

The Board was asked to consider the information set out in the report on the plans for improvement and the arrangements for ensuring improvements are maintained, including determining the role of the Board in that regard.

5.4

Phil Holmes (Director of Adult Services), in presenting the report, commented on the nature of the CQC Review and the reasons why Sheffield was one of 20 areas selected for Review.  He outlined Sheffield’s strengths, as identified in the Review report, and commented on Sheffield’s response to the conclusions of the Review, as articulated in the Action Plan, which sets out the key areas of improvement for Sheffield.  The Plan contained nine key actions which had been agreed for five priority areas, with these areas being (A) to work in a way that acknowledges and improves older people’s views and experiences and which drives a city-wide vision; (B) to have a shared city-wide workforce strategy to support front-line staff to deliver the vision and which further develops multi-agency working; (C) clearer governance arrangements to ensure stronger joint working between organisations and greater involvement for the Voluntary, Community and Faith sector; (D) a shift to prevention at scale, supported by clear commissioning arrangements, including descaling what isn’t working; and (E) a strong system focus on enabling the right support from the right people in the right place and at the right time to provide the best possible experience for older people and to ensure best use of resources.  He concluded his presentation by outlining some thoughts on roles and responsibilities for ensuring progress against the Action Plan, including roles for this Board and the Healthier Communities and Adult Social Care Scrutiny and Policy Development Committee in that regard.

5.5

Greg Fell, in supporting the Action Plan, asked how progress would be monitored, and in response, Phil Holmes outlined the measures which Sheffield’s Accountable Care Partnership (being the body responsible for enabling and delivering the Plan) would utilise to monitor progress.

5.6

In response to a query from Councillor Jackie Drayton regarding health partners’ views on the Action Plan, Phil Holmes confirmed that the Action Plan benefitted from whole system involvement, with the local health partner organisations taking shared ownership of the Plan.  Nicki Doherty added that each health partner organisation had agreed the actions it would take and to ensure that their delivery would be overseen at senior leadership level.

5.7

Jayne Ludlam suggested that this Board should have the role of driving the agenda to shift resource deployment towards prevention.

5.8

Jayne Brown enquired as to the extent of progress already made on delivering the Action Plan, and in response, Phil Holmes outlined initiatives which had recently been launched to provide momentum and to increase understanding of older people’s service experiences.  He added that the Accountable Care Partnership (ACP) would be monitoring progress on the delivery of the Action Plan, and that its performance monitoring information would be provided to this Board to enable progress to be appraised.  He undertook to circulate the current monitoring data to Board members by email and to report more fully to the next meeting of the Board.  In response to a further comment from Councillor Jackie Drayton, Phil Holmes confirmed that future Action Plan monitoring reports would include relevant statistical and trend information.

5.9

In response to comments made by Chief Inspector Helen Lewis regarding inappropriate criminalisation of older people, Phil Holmes, in acknowledging the issue, indicated that this linked to safeguarding and that he would raise this matter with the Adult Safeguarding Board.

5.10

Greg Fell suggested that, as part of the Board’s role in ensuring progress against the Action Plan, Board members could take personal responsibility for championing specific actions or sponsoring priority themes.

5.11

RESOLVED: That (a) the information contained in the report now submitted be noted;

(b) the plans for continually improving the care and support for older people in Sheffield, as set out in the Action Plan, be supported;

(c) the recommendation that the focus of the Board should be to ensure that governance arrangements are robust to drive the right outcomes for older people, and that the Board evaluates progress every six months to ensure a meaningful shift to prevention at scale that results in a greater number of people being able to maintain health and wellbeing for longer, be supported; and

(d) the suggestion that Board members take personal responsibility for championing specific actions or sponsoring priority themes, be supported and the Director of Adult Services and Director of Public Health be requested to co-ordinate the allocation process.