Agenda item

10:45

Contact Officer: John Jackson – Director for Social & Community Services, tel 01865 323574

The Director for Social & Community Services will give a presentation on initial ideas on the future of Day Services for Older People.

The Cabinet Member for Adult Services, together with the Head of Adult Social Care andthe Head of Strategy and Transformation will also attend for this item to answer Members’ questions.

It is anticipated that the proposals will have been finalised by September.

The Committee is invited to discuss the issues raised in the presentation and offer any comment at this initial stage.

The Director for Social & Community Services gave a presentation on initial ideas on the future of Day Services for Older People, a copy of which is attached to the signed Minutes.

The Committee was invited to discuss the issues raised in the presentation and offer any comment at this initial stage.

The presentation had already been given to providers and would be given to Age Concern Oxfordshire the following week. The Directorate would be ascertaining service users’ views on future provision, for example, via Age UK Oxfordshire’s Health and Social Care Panel for Older People.

Following discussion and debate, the Committee AGREED to put forward the following advice to the Director for Social & Community Services:

This Committee broadly welcomes the proposals as set out in the presentation and:

·        agrees that 1/3 of the budget left for day services should go into the Resource Allocation System (RAS) and 2/3 should remain outside;

·        agrees that the Directorate should continue to provide day services for older people in some form, for all of the reasons given in the presentation (physical and mental stimulation, centre for other activities valued by older people, provision of company for those who are at risk of becoming isolated, provision of a good meal for those who may not feed themselves well and an important way of providing respite for carers) as well as their role in preventing and delaying admission into nursing and residential care homes;

·        agrees that the proposed three tier system should be implemented (Tier 1: Resource and Wellbeing Centres in the larger towns run by the county council or other providers; Tier 2: Day services in village halls/community centres determined locally; Tier 3: Small grants to fund community based initiatives which benefit older people);

·        in relation to Tier 1:

-          recognises the need for effective marketing of the Centres to encourage people to use them (both those people who meet the eligibility criteria for adult social care - many of whom will have a personal budget to spend - and other people who could access universal services), both of whom might feel that they would not wish to use such facilities or would not think of doing so;

-          agrees that this could be done by initiatives such as providing exercise and adult learning classes, and free taster classes at the Centres in order to familiarise people with the facilities and show them that the Centres are vibrant and stimulating environments suitable for people of a broad age range and functionality;

·        in relation to Tier 2, agrees that what should be provided locally should not be determined centrally by the County Council, but should be determined within the 14 localities used by the County Council or similar, in order to meet local need, and that part of that consideration should take into account those services available over the border in neighbouring authorities;

·        endorses the use of a working group in relation to Tier 2 that would determine how to allocate money to the locality and would comprise a wide range of people close to the needs of the community, including District Council colleagues, the Adult Social Care Locality Manager, Health (eg District Nurse or Practice Manager from a GP surgery), a representative of older people locally and County and District Councillors;

·        suggests that a wide range of publicity methods should be used, including use of the Oxford Association of Local Councils;

·        wishes to emphasise that County Councillors also have a key role to play in terms of information dissemination;

·        in relation to Tier 3, endorses the use of small grants to fund community based initiatives which will benefit older people on the same basis as the “chill out fund” in CYPF, on the grounds that many ideas might just need a one off payment to get started, whilst recognising the need for these initiatives to be sustainable;

·        recognises the expense involved in providing transport to day services including current expenditure, and suggests that this could be mitigated through the use of local transport schemes such as volunteer drivers, whilst acknowledging the insurance issues that would need to be addressed and the need to ensure sufficient backup drivers for the smaller schemes.

All members of the Committee were invited to submit any further comments to the Director for Social & Community Services by the end of June at the latest.

The Director for Social & Community Services undertook to provide the following information to all members of the Committee:

• the number of places currently available at the county's Resource and Wellbeing Centres and the number of places that would be available at the county's Resource and Wellbeing Centres should the provision as set out in the presentation be implemented;

• the number of people in the county that currently meet the eligibility criteria for adult social care and predicted numbers of people county wide that would be eligible for adult social care in the future.

Ms Coldwell undertook to email a copy of the presentation given at the meeting to all members of the Committee.