Issue - meetings

Consideration was given to the report of the Corporate Director of Social Services which was presented to update Members on the work and decisions taken over the last 6 months by the Regional Partnership Board, developed under statutory guidance Part 9 of the Social Services and Wellbeing (Wales) Act 2014 (SSWB Act) since the last report presented to Social Services Scrutiny Committee on the 22nd April 2021.

The Corporate Director of Social Services spoke to the report and highlighted the main points contained therein and explained that the Regional Partnership Board was an advisory body and was expected to provide direction to any areas of integrated working across health and social care.

In response to a Member’s question regarding the development of a children’s residential home at Windmill Farm in Newport the Corporate Director of Social Services confirmed that funding for the children’s residential home would be provided by the Integrated Care Fund capital together with the ICF revenue funding stream to deliver the proposed integrated model across Gwent.  The Member commented that it was pleasing to note that the long term objective was to get care closer to home.

A Member enquired regarding blockages in hospitals and raised concerns that people had passed away as they had been unable to access the required treatment and care.  The Director of Social Services said that in relation to health and the ambulance service they now had an additional 40 military staff which covered the area across South Wales, to drive the ambulances, which freed up additional paramedics. This had been implemented approximately 3-4 weeks ago and would hopefully have an impact on being able to attend more incidents.    Over the past 8-9 weeks they had been looking at measures to improve the situation and had been working with WAST regarding social workers in their call centre to give advice on whether a person needed to go into hospital or be supported at home with domiciliary care provision. 

The Head of Adult Services reassured Members what they were doing from a social care perspective to ensure they could discharge as many patients as safely as possible out of hospital.  They met regularly with senior managers in the Health Board and held discussions to escalate any patient that had been prevented from being discharged from hospital to look at solutions to discharge them.  They had increased capacity to carry out assessments by offering additional overtime, weekend and evening work to social care and social services staff.

A Member raised concerns regarding staff shortages at the Grange Hospital.  The Director of Social Services advised Members that he had requested a Members Briefing Session with the Health Board which would give Members an opportunity to ask appropriate questions.  The Health Board had agreed to hold a session during February 2022 after winter pressures had eased. 

With regard to recruitment of Social Care workers, a Member enquired if the Council’s pay structure was comparable to other authorities.   The Director of Social Services said that across the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6