Issue - meetings

The Cabinet Member for Adult Services and Human Resources presented a report on a new vision for the provision of care and support to those adults within the Borough who required assistance.

The Cabinet Member advised that the majority of current recipients of assistance had chosen to have their care provided by a personal assistant since the introduction of the Council’s Personalisation programme, rather than through the more traditional homecare route.  Satisfaction rates for those engaging a personal assistant were high and it was therefore proposed to extend the service via the remodelling of the in-house homecare team, the appointment of 200 new personal assistants and a reduction in the use of private homecare agencies.  The Cabinet Member confirmed that the new approach would provide additional safeguards for the Borough’s most vulnerable residents while enabling the Council to meet future demands and pressures within the current financial climate.

Cabinet agreed:

  (i)  The vision of “most people receiving their care and support by an arrangement with a personal assistant”;

  (ii)  The organisational and staffing changes needed to deliver the vision, including the remodelling of the in-house Home Care team and the development of a smaller in-house team of personal assistants for those people most at risk;

 (iii)  To note that the savings target of £220,000 in respect of home care services, agreed as part of the Budget Strategy for 2012/13 to 2014/15, would be delivered through the new approach; and

 (iv)  That existing block contracts with home care companies should not be renewed when they expired in August 2013.