This is a discussion item.
Minutes:
The Chair introduced this item and welcomed Councillor Alev Cazimoglu as Cabinet Member for Health and Social Care. He asked Councillor Cazimoglu to give a brief overview of what she considers to be the key objectives and priorities in respect of the portfolio.
Councillor Cazimoglu thanked Members for the opportunity to attend the meeting and felt that it was a good time to come and talk about what she wants from her role as well as providing an update on progress to date.
She introduced Officers from the key areas of her portfolio; Bindi Nagra, Director of Health & Adult Social Care and Doug Wilson, Head of Strategy & Service Development.
Councillor Cazimoglu highlighted the following:
· Social Care is under greater challenges nationally and the sector is very much in crisis.
· There has been some short term, limited solutions however there appears to be no long-term plans in place and there doesn’t seem to be any real solutions or guidance coming from central government.
· Despite this uncertainty Enfield should be very proud as we continue to deliver very safe and good quality health and social care services.
· During the nine years of central government cuts and austerity the department has risen to the challenge and been innovative in an attempt to deliver the very best services that it can under the current circumstances.
· Despite the national picture we are doing very well locally. However, the pressures do not go away, they just pop up somewhere else and therefore this impact is often seen in other services across the council.
· Lack of sufficient social care funding will have a huge impact on health services. There is currently a lot of talk regarding integration and the possibility of the health service and social care services working more closely together to make the users’ experiences and outcomes better.
Bindi Nagra, Director of Health & Social Care provided some further information on the service highlighting the following:
· A lot of work has taken place over the past nine months in an attempt to live within the budget set and the service continues to put effort into this to deliver the agreed savings.
· The values of the organisation and staff here at Enfield are much better than other places. Although money and resources are tight, we continue to do the very best for our service users and aim to continue this.
· We provide our service users with Direct Payments to allow them as much independence as possible and to make their own choices. This proves the most cost effective and results in better outcomes.
· Relationships with our health partners is challenging. The CCG in Enfield has been in difficulty for a decade which therefore causes ongoing problems. We are currently looking at how to join up and integrate services at an operational level. We will also continue to work with the CCG on budgets and over the coming year there will be a much clearer picture of the Council’s agenda for working with health services.
· We will continue to work closely with North Middlesex Hospital as this relationship has resulted in low levels of delayed discharges in Enfield.
· In response to a question about customer satisfaction levels Bindi explained that most members of the public who have no contact with Adult Social care, as it is not a universal service and therefore does not affect them, only have something to say/an opinion when it actually impacts them, therefore it can prove somewhat difficult to gage public perception and how satisfied they are with the services provided. We can only really talk to and obtain feedback by people who are directly impacted by Adult Social Care.
· Councillor Alev Cazimoglu felt that as a society we do not talk about, understand or fund social care services enough. Fifty thousand people a year die waiting for social care (figures published by Age UK), which is a massive and alarming number.
· Further discussions took place around mental health and sheltered accommodation and some of the problems relating to this. Doug Wilson, Head of Strategy & Service provided information on supported living and how Enfield often imports people from other boroughs. He explained that landlords often buy properties then set themselves up as supported living providers therefore Enfield Council are not always aware of who has been housed there.
· He went on to say that Enfield is proud of how it’s been able to safeguard its early intervention offer to mental health services, as this is the difference between individuals being able to live independently or falling back into crisis. We have also safeguarded out early intervention offer to the Voluntary Sector and will continue with this work.
· Bindi added that he is always conscious how the quality of housing and useful employment impacts on peoples’ mental health. Fundamentally we would have less people in distress if we had decent levels of housing and adequate employment opportunities.
· Councillor Erbil spoke about the Deaf Community Forum and advised how they were not happy with the new service provided by CommUNITY Barnet. She was interested to know whether feedback from service users was taken into consideration. Doug advised that he had been very deeply involved in this whole process and explained in detail the conversations and meetings that had taken place with the Deaf Project/ENDIG and Enfield Disability Action (EDA) with a view to reaching a mutual agreement for the service moving forward. The council had been extremely mindful of working with the Deaf Community when making decisions about funding for the Deaf Project and did everything possible to reach a solution that best suited the service users. However, despite numerous meetings/conversations the EDA/Deaf project were not able to submit a plan for the best use of the funding available. Therefore, Enfield Council commissioned a service and the contract was awarded to CommUNITY Barnet. The service (which is a like for like service with that previously offered) is now up and running and available for service users.
· In response to a question about the uptake in Enfield for Disabled Facilities Grants Bindi advised that this system is well used with over £2M being spent each year on this.
The Chair thanked Councillor Cazimoglu and the Officers for their interesting and informative update.