Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received as follows:

• Councillor Shahzad gave apologies for lateness

Members are invited to declare at this stage of the meeting, the nature and existence of any relevant disclosable pecuniary or personal interests in the items on this agenda and to specify the item(s) to which they relate.

There were no interests declared.

To hear any deputations received from members of the public in accordance with Standing Order 67.

There were no deputations received.

To approve the minutes of the previous meeting as a correct record.

RESOLVED:-

That the minutes of the previous meeting held on 24 March 2021 be approved as an accurate record of the meetings.

In relation to item 8 of the minutes the Chair confirmed that the task group had met and placed sessions into diaries. In relation to item 9 of the minutes the Chair advised that James Diamond (Scrutiny Officer, Brent Council) was collating member’s questions and progress would be made soon.

This report provides an update to the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee on the recommissioning of home care contracts.

The Chair invited Councillor Farah (Lead Member for Adult Social Care, Brent Council) to introduce the item for discussion. In introducing the report, Councillor Farah advised that the paper was presented to the Committee to note and see progress so far. He added that the 3 recommendations of the home care scrutiny task group from 2018 had been taken into consideration.

Gill Vickers (Operational Director Adult Social Care, Brent Council) highlighted that the recommissioning was good news as services would be place, or patch-based to support local people within their local communities. The report detailed that the Council had already achieved the providers uplift to provide the London Living Wage (LLW), had incorporated the Unison Care Charter, and there was a regular forum for providers. The challenge faced going forward would be linking home care patches with Primary Care Networks (PCNs).

Andrew Davies (Head of Commissioning, Contracting and Market Management; Adult Social Care, Brent Council) advised that, prior to the award of the new contract for homecare, Brent had been spot purchasing homecare provision from an old West London Alliance homecare framework. The benefits of the old framework, such as providing good control of hours and costs of homecare, were set out in the report, but the Committee were advised it was a generic open framework which meant the Council were working with in the region of 70 homecare providers which was felt to be too many to get a sense of the quality of providers and develop a working relationship with providers. The aim through the new tender was to move to a place based approach for homecare and implement the recommendations from the scrutiny task group, which they had been able to do. The Committee were advised that the new homecare contracts were Unison Care Charter Compliant, paid LLW, and had less zero hours contracts for staff. The Council had appointed 14 lead providers for homecare services in Brent; 7 for older people and physical disability services; 3 for children and young people services; 2 for learning disability services; and 2 for mental health services. The new contract went live on 1 February 2021 so any new homecare package a person in Brent had needed since February 2021 had been awarded through these new contracted lead providers. Andrew Davies added that only 2 providers in the new contract were not already delivering services in Brent prior to the award so the vast majority were all known to Brent. He advised that since the contracts went live in February 2021, officers had been meeting with providers every 4 weeks to update them on implementation and make clear expectations of service delivery. Feedback from service users and providers had been very positive so far.

Continuing to introduce the report, Andrew Davies advised that from the 4 April 2021 the transfer of existing care packages had begun, which had been done a patch at a time as outlined in the report. He advised that it was very much a service  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

This report provides the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee an update on New Accommodation for Independent Living (NAIL).

Gill Vickers (Operational Director Adult Social Care, Brent Council) introduced the report, noting that New Accommodation for Independent Living (NAIL) was a good example of the choice residents had on offer and was seen as good practice. She highlighted that NAIL was a good model for supporting people with a range of different needs from complex to lower level needs to ensure they have the best possibility to live independently. The Committee heard that COVID-19 had slowed down the Council’s ability to move people but the positive was that people were beginning to recognise living in residential care was not necessarily what they wanted and would be seeking something that would allow them to be more independent while still having a level of support going forward.

Andrew Davies (Head of Commissioning, Contracting and Market Management; Adult Social Care, Brent Council) explained that the NAIL programme had been running in Brent within Adult Social Care since 2014 as its accommodation and support programme. He advised that the Council had a whole host of supported living and extra care services for people with disabilities which gave a real choice and control over care and support. The way the programme delivered savings to the Council was that those who lived in NAIL accommodation were tenants and therefore the housing part of their care package was paid for through housing benefits. Those principals were set out in the report and in section 4 which detailed the savings made year on year. The Committee heard that when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, and throughout the course of 3 lockdowns, the Council had been unable to move anyone into NAIL due to safety and ensuring risk management, and a number of NAIL schemes had not been able to open as planned because the staff were not in place to help people move in at the time. Andrew Davies highlighted that despite the difficulty during the pandemic, during the periods that adult social care were able to operate as normal they had managed to increase NAIL occupancy by 9% across the year. In addition, during the pandemic while nobody was able to move in to NAIL schemes, those schemes that had not been mobilised or opened were used as COVID-19 step down services for people coming out of hospital but not yet able to return home. In terms of moving forward for the next year, Andrew Davies highlighted table 2 of the report showing the schemes delivered in 2020-2021 which the Council were committed to delivering. There would also be a need to look again at the demand moving forward. Areas of focus were detailed in table 5.6 of the report and the extra care model of care was being reviewed as in earlier stages of NAIL the threshold for care had been set relatively high to be eligible for an extra care housing scheme, which was now being reduced to improve and broaden the number of people eligible for those schemes to create  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

This report provides information to the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee on the activities of day services including during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gill Vickers (Operational Director Adult Social Care) introduced the report. The Committee were advised that any day service provision started with an assessment of the individual and how their needs could be supported, looking at whether some form of day support needed to be commissioned through an independent provider, direct payments or a community support package. Adult social care were beginning to look at shaping the market to be clear all providers needed to be responsive and accessible to all groups of residents within Brent.

The Committee heard that during the pandemic all providers worked with social care teams where they had to shut buildings and looked at priority needs and how they could deliver through follow up phone calls, virtual working, and where permitted meeting outdoors to balance that need for occupation and mental wellbeing against safety from COVID-19.

James Pearce (Interim Head of Service for Complex and Direct Services, Brent Council) highlighted the immense challenge of the last year from March 2020. A decision had been made in March 2020 in line with the majority of London boroughs and across the country to shut building bases of day centres down which had planning implications for how to provide day services to those in receipt. This was in line with Public Health England guidance. He advised that the report outlined a narrative of what was done during the year to try to enable and ensure maintenance of those clients and family members. He added that generally clients and family members were strongly in agreement with the actions taken particularly during the first lockdown as the cohort were some of the most vulnerable in society and subject to the highest risk of outcome were they to contract COVID-19. Alternative methods to enable and support clients were put in place after a period of planning, including welfare calls at least weekly. An integral part of keeping in touch was identifying where people were struggling and needing additional support such as food supplies, activity and physical support, so work was often done in collaboration with colleagues from the learning disabilities team to arrange further support.

The Committee heard that opportunity to consider a digital and virtual response was realised, particularly for those with significant isolation, so activity packs were developed and online sessions were delivered with a number of areas where that had been effective managed and were still functioning still.

James Pearce advised that the team had also began looking at co-production with independent providers of day care to ensure what was being offered was aligned with the Council offer, directly involving staff and visiting other services to see how they were working.

The Chair thanked adult social care colleagues for introducing the paper and invited those present to ask questions, with the following issues raised:

The Committee asked for assurance that independent advisers who provided culturally appropriate support would not be decommissioned if they had an unsuitable building. James Pearce advised that their challenge was to make buildings usable and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

Notice of items to be raised under this heading must be given in writing to the Head of Executive and Member Services or his representative before the meeting in accordance with Standing Order 60.

None.