The Health Social Care & Well Being Overview & Scrutiny Board met yesterday to discuss how adult social care is to be remodelled to deliver more “person centred” services. The Welsh Assembly Government’s Fulfilled Lives, Supportive Communities 2007 says of services:
Whatever their difficulty or impairment, people should be supported to have control over the life they wish to live. People have the right to expect services which help them to make full use of their potential, protect them from harm and offer a choice about how they are supported
The Board learned about other factors which are driving this change to more person centred services:
- Traditional services do not meet modern demands and expectations
- Culture of risk aversion which does not put the person at the centre of service delivery
- Lack of staff involvement in service development
- Lack of focus on the “lived experience”
- People are living longer with complex needs
- Increasingly limited budget & service sustainability
There were mixed feelings amongst some on the Board on the options for remodelling. The options were: services remain in house; develop an arms length company; open procurement to purchase adult social care on the open market. The results of the SWOT analysis workshop on these options, which Councillors had participated in, will be included in the Cabinet report in February. In this report the Cabinet Member for Social Services will seek the agreement of Cabinet to move forward with a full business case for the preferred option for service remodelling. This could mean big changes to the way that services for adults are delivered. The Overview & Scrutiny Board is keen to be involved at all stages of the process and agreed yesterday that the Cabinet report should be subject of pre-decision scrutiny. This will be a one-off session in the next few weeks that will enable the Overview & Scrutiny Board to review and challenge proposals and influence the decision-making process.
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