Agenda item

For the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee to receive a report about how carers access services in Brent.

Councillor Nerva (Cabinet Member for Public Health and Adult Social Care, Brent Council) introduced the report, which provided an overview of the arrangements in place for carer support in Brent, which was key to ensuring people could be supported in home settings. He acknowledged that many present had declared that they were carers in some way. The report was presented in advance of formal procurement for carer services, and he confirmed there was opportunity for future involvement from scrutiny in the procurement process.

Tiffany Adonis-French (Head of Services Access information and Long Term Support, Brent Council) added to the introduction. The definitions used for ‘carer’ in the report and the numbers referred to were in relation to the Care Act definition and assessment process, but she acknowledged the vast number of informal care arrangements happening across Brent. Anyone could be a carer and often people did not recognise themselves as being a carer. Data from the 2011 census showed there were over 26,000 carers in Brent, of which the Council were supporting just over 650. She noted that there would be more up to date information from the 2021 census soon. As such, the Council were recognising the need for higher levels of engagement to give people the opportunity to come forward and be recognised and supported as a carer.

The types of services carers were currently engaging with were respite services, sit-in services and day opportunities, and a number of carers received support through direct payments. The Council was relaunching its Carer’s Strategy which would speak to 3-4 strategic objectives to benchmark against. This would include a Carer Strategy Delivery Board made up of local authority officers, community stakeholders, and a range of carers. A carer’s forum was also being set up as an opportunity for all adult carers to have a place to go with their particular issues and get assurances that their concerns were being listened to and addressed.

Lynette Gbedze (Market Oversight Manager, Brent Council) concluded the introduction, explaining that the Brent Gateway Support Services contract would be coming to an end during the year, and so a retendering process would happen. Officers were undertaking market engagement events and meeting with carers in the community, the Brent Carers Forum and Ashford Place to get feedback on what had worked well with their support services so far to inform the specification moving forward. Officers would like to come back to the Committee with that new specification for comment.

The Chair thanked officers for their introduction and invited comments and questions from those present, with the following issues raised:

The Committee asked where carers turned to if the behaviour of the person they cared for deteriorated and they did not know what to look for online. They were advised that Gateway had been used all around the borough for carers to access services anywhere in Brent, which is what the specification had asked for. Gateway had a base in Bridge Park and attended different day centres on various days of the week. Other routes carers could use was through the Brent Family Front Door, who would then refer them into Gateway. There were also a range of other community based options such as Brent Hubs and Brent Carers Centre. Officers knew where people were presenting and the source of referrals.

Committee members asked how the Council had been measuring how well Gateway services were doing through covid and whether there were plans to do more analysis and have more data available going forward. Tiffany Adonis-French advised that the Council were looking to achieve transparency with the commissioned service, including referral rates, activity, end-to-end offer, and onward referral data. This would be one of the strategic aims for the Carers Board, to better scrutinise and have a much clearer understanding of the impact and outcomes of the commissioned services.

In relation to the Carer Strategy Delivery Board, the Committee asked whether there were plans to continue with a Co-Chair with lived experience. Officers confirmed that there was a commitment to continue with co-production so that the voice of lived experience spoke to the strategy being developed. The Board was being relaunched following Covid-19, ensuring the views of the community were listened to and looking at outcomes from carer’s surveys and transactional surveys as well as outcomes from reviews to inform strategic aims. As such, someone with lived experience would continue to co-chair the Board. In response to whether there would be a separate forum for mental health carers, officers confirmed there would be, as well as other community forums to enable people to share their experiences. Those groups were in development as part of the overall strategy development.

The Committee asked how officers were engaging with Black and ethnic minority residents and disabled residents. They were advised that officers had seen the beginnings of some engagement, but recognised more needed to be done in that space when looking at the overall number of carers and considering the ethnic breakdown of the carers registered in Brent. An engagement piece working with faith groups was underway, using vehicles that already existed in communities to help officers reach them. It was recognised that there was an underrepresentation of certain parts of the community regarding carers and Adult Social Care was trying to identify them and find other way to engage with them such as through radio announcements and community leaders.

In relation to the main challenges carers faced, the Committee heard that communication arose heavily in feedback from carers. They felt it had not been clear who Gateway were and where they were based. This would be taken on board as the Council went through the retender process, ensuring communications were widely circulated through various means so people knew who their carer’s services were and how to access them. Carers also wanted to be able to access health services through their carers service, and officers would work to integrate that support within the specification for the retendered service. In terms of the main challenges for Adult Social Care in providing support, access to information was one, as it had been a challenge to find ways to engage and have a presence away from the places people may ordinarily look. Another challenge was the need for services to be agile and flexible to meet changing need as people’s circumstances changed.

On the issue of communication, the Committee highlighted that the first point of contact for carers was their GPs, but there were rarely posters with information about Gateway. Adult Social Care were working to come up with a shared referral form that could be used and were putting support services into GP practices so that Adult Social Care services, early help and early intervention offers were available at source.

The Committee asked what support was available for children and young people transitioning into being adult carers to ensure they did not slip through the net. Adult Social Care were making a concerted effort to ‘facing both ways’, asking scheduled review teams to get involved much earlier with people coming through the system and strengthening that link to the Brent Carers Forum which was aligned closely with children and young people. Phil Porter (Strategic Director Community Wellbeing, Brent Council) added that Gateway Services responded to carers of all ages and had done some great work with young carers. It was important to take this into consideration when the service was recommissioned. Committee members asked how the involvement of young people had been prioritised when looking at issues carers face. Officers explained that when officers visited service users within their family setting they looked holistically at a whole family approach, considering the range of needs within that household and making appropriate referrals. So, where officers identified young carers there was an expectation they would make an onward referral to a relevant service.

In relation to the difference the carer support contract had made for Brent residents, Lynette Gbedze highlighted that there had been significant improvement in feedback from children’s services from colleagues and those using the service. Gateway had done a lot of engagement with schools also. Adult Social Care were looking to develop ways, using the Performance and Insights Team, to do more transactional engagement asking for feedback from service users, and then using a smaller group of service users to do a deep dive. Kent University had been commissioned to do a detailed analysis of the carer experience in Brent.

The Chair invited a representative of Brent Youth Parliament to address the Committee. They highlighted that Brent had 3,200 young carers, and asked if Adult Social Care were planning to introduce a way young people could promote the youth voice within the carers sphere. Tiffany Adonis-French advised that there was a young carer representative on the Carer’s Strategy Delivery Board, which acted as a vehicle to speak to some of the issues faced by young people. There was also a Brent Parent Carers Forum. It was agreed that colleagues would arrange for the young carer representative to speak to Brent Youth Parliament.

As there were no further questions, the Chair drew the discussion to a close. He invited the Committee to make recommendations, with the following RESOLVED:

i)              To recommend that Adult Social Care embeds a pathway for carers within the Carers Strategy when it was relaunched.

ii)             To recommend utilising Community Champions to help with the engagement of different communities within Brent.