Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor B M Dobson.

No interests were declared.

The Chairman, Councillor C E H Marfleet welcomed the new Committee and asked everyone to introduce themselves.

There were no further announcements.

(To receive a verbal report from Glen Garrod (Executive Director of Adult Care and Community Wellbeing) which provides the Committee with an introduction to this area of the Council's responsibility)

The Committee received a presentation from Glen Garrod, the Executive Director for Adult Care and Community Wellbeing which introduced Members to the services within his area.

The presentation covered:

·    Reablement activity;

·    Wellbeing activity;

·    Carers' activity;

·    Adult Care Services;

·    Customer experience in homecare;

·    Delayed transfers of care from NHS services to LCC services;

·    The cost of looking after people with long term conditions;

·    Helping care homes to improve across Lincolnshire;

·    How budgets are influenced;

·    Public Health responsibilities;

·    The service's priorities for 2017/18.

Questions from members of the Committee confirmed the following information:

·         Care homes inspected by the CQC (Care Quality Commission) and receiving an inspection verdict of either Inadequate or Requires Improvement would be re-inspected at a later date to assess improvements.  It was clarified that usually six months would be left between the two inspections, however it may need to be proportionate, depending on the individual home;

·         Adult Care supported the Blue Light Collaboration Project which involved Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue working in partnership with EMAS (East Midlands Ambulance Service) to respond to medical emergencies across the county.  Given the rurality and size of Lincolnshire, the project had strong support from the Executive and had proved successful with 56% of Fire and Rescue's callouts being for co-responding, compared to 15% for firefighting.

As part of this item, the Head of Finance for Adult Care, Steve Houchin, gave an overview presentation on the finance aspect of Adult Care and Community Wellbeing which covered:

·         The current position and recent history;

·         Budget analysis,

·         Capital;

·         How adult care was funded;

·         Service user contributions;

·         The Better Care Fund and its funding;

·         How budgets are influenced;

·         Adult Care net expenditure for 2015/16.

The Committee was reassured by Officers that adult care financing was highly complex and an in depth knowledge of the subject would not be required of Members in order to fulfil their duty on the Committee.

RESOLVED

1.    That the Introduction to Adult Care and Community Wellbeing  presentation be noted;

2.    That the Overview of Adult Care and Community Wellbeing finance In Lincolnshire presentation be noted.

(To receive a report and presentation by Tony McGinty (Interim Director of Public Health) which provides the Committee with an overview of Lincolnshire's refreshed JSNA 2017 which was made available on the Lincolnshire Research Observatory (LRO) website on 9 June 2017)

A presentation and website demonstration on the Lincolnshire Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) was given by Tony McGinty, Interim Director of Public Health).

During the presentation the following points were noted:

·    The JSNA was a public document and had recently been republished on the website of the Lincolnshire Research Observatory (LRO) and assessed the current and future health needs of the people of Lincolnshire;

·    It was made up of a number of health topics covering a range of needs from breastfeeding and healthy lifestyles, to drug misuse and major diseases;

·    As an example to demonstrate the website, the data for falls from the Older People section was used which showed a wealth of information and statistics both from cases in Lincolnshire and nationally to help build up a picture of why people fall, what injuries are caused, preventing falls etc.  This level of information was available for all the topics identified in the JSNA;

·    Information within the JSNA was used to help develop policy decisions within the Council.

A discussion on domestic abuse took place, and it was confirmed that despite the potential further reduction in funding for the domestic abuse service, Adult Care had underwritten these cuts from within its own budget to prevent a reduction in the service.

Safeguarding was also discussed and Committee members were urged to attend one of two sessions on Vulnerable Adults and Public Health in July, which would assist in their scrutiny of safeguarding issues.

RESOLVED

That the presentation and LRO website demonstration on the JSNA be noted.

(To receive a report by Simon Evans (Health Scrutiny Officer) which invites the Committee to consider its work programme for the forthcoming year)

The Health Scrutiny Officer introduced the Committee to its work programme for forthcoming meetings and it was noted that items listed for the July and September meetings were subject to change.

The proposed new meeting dates which had been emailed to Members were agreed.

RESOLVED

That the work programme and changes made therein be agreed.