Agenda item

11:00

Sheila Browne and Mary Judge will deliver a report discussing the outcomes of recent visits to residential care homes (AS6a).

Adrian Chant, LINk Host manager, will give an update on other recent activities of the LINk (AS6b). This will include a verbal update on the action plan resulting from this year’s Hearsay event.

Mary Judge and Sheila Browne gave an overview of the work done by the LINk in visiting care homes in Oxfordshire. 30 volunteers visited 50 care homes across the county. All volunteers were CRB checked and given a clear set of guidelines on what to look for and how to conduct themselves during visits. Where concerns were raised a follow up visit took place.

The most persistent issue arising from conversations with service users and families was that it is often difficult or confusing when sourcing information about the options for care.

It was also found that there was sometimes a lack of awareness among users of the role of the Local involvement Network. It was felt that this emphasised the importance of Healthwatch establishing a strong profile early in their existence. It was emphasised that transition work was ongoing to this effect.

The committee were complementary of the quality of the project and the conclusions of the report.

The Deputy Director for Joint Commissioning distributed a note outlining the directorate’s response to the report’s findings. See below for full text:

“I welcome the report from the Local Involvement Network (LINk). 

I feel very strongly that we have a collective responsibility to ensure that older and vulnerable people are safe and experience good quality care in their old age. The responsibility for the quality of care that older people receive sits first and foremost with the service provider. The primary relationship is between the care home provider and the older person and we, along with CQC, health professionals, elected members, the community and the LINk have an important role in supporting that relationship, and in alerting should things go wrong. It is our aspiration to improve the quality of services that people are receiving in Oxfordshire and we have a great deal of work going with that aim in mind. The work of the LINk contributes to this overall plan. Later on in this agenda I will be reporting on the work that my contracts team carry out to assure the quality of services that we buy from care homes through our contract monitoring.

There are about 150 registered care homes in Oxfordshire; about 108 of these are care homes that provide services for older people. This translates into over 4,200 beds for older people - the Council buys about 1/3 of these.

The general approach that we are promoting is one that

·        to promote care homes as being a key part of the community;

·        to encourage providers to develop quality standards that are developed in line with the quality principles set out in the Social Care White Paper (eg start with the person, co-production, transparency, workforce etc);

·        encourage providers to seek feedback on their services.

We believe that by encouraging and fostering this relationship we can help to champion the needs of older people living in the area and promote good quality care and support.  It is for this reason I welcome the work that the LINk does and for this same reason that I am promoting initiatives such as Adopt a Care Home. It is extremely helpful to have these independent views of people's experiences in a care home setting.

I would now like to comment on the report.

What the LINk is reporting generally concurs with our findings when OCC staff visit care homes.  That is that residents are generally well looked after, they are comfortable and live in a safe and secure environment.

The LINk has also found that residents are under occupied and perhaps not participating in activities.  They are not participating in exercise. The quality of provision tends to vary between homes, often linked to the quality of local management and leadership of the service provider. In common with the LINk we would like to see more participation in activities. There are clear benefits to maintaining mobility and activity for people of all ages.

However we also recognise that this involvement in activities may be a matter of personal choice.  In this respect I think that one of the key issues we need to consider is the quality of the interaction between residents and staff member. In accepting that this may at times be of a short duration I believe that the challenge for us all must be to ensure that interaction is personal to the resident and of a consistent high quality throughout.

I'm very pleased to hear the comments in this report about the commitment of staff.  We know that staff work hard at a local level to deliver a good service.

I would also like to reflect on satisfaction levels that we have found from our annual survey across Oxfordshire. The view appears to be that people are generally happy with services they receive. A survey of 546 social care clients was undertaken in February 2012 and the questionnaire’s returned in respect of care home services indicated that overall 91% were satisfied with services (71% of them being extremely or very satisfied), and only 2% were dissatisfied. But this is not a reason for complacency - the LINk's report provides a useful reference document that we can use to help drive forward our quality agenda.

·        One initiative we have started is the establishment of a Quality Network. Membership is mainly made up of providers supported by officers from the Council. The group is considering how best we can promote quality across a range of services in Oxfordshire. Care home providers are part of this group and I will make sure that the LINk's report is shared with them.

·        NHS Oxfordshire operates a Care Homes Support service (CHSS). Review of the Care Home Support Service provided by Oxford Health and commissioned by the PCT. I will make sure that through our liaison with that team that the LINk's comments about End-of-Life services and Dementia inform that review.

·        Members will also be aware that Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (OCCG has been successful in receiving money to support four dementia projects. One of the projects involves creating a “personalised” service for people with dementia who are in care homes or hospitals but who also have other physical and mental needs.  I am sure the LINk's report will provide a useful reference for this work.”