Agenda item

To consider the Adult Social Care Key Performance Indicators.

Councillor Margetts, Executive Member for Health, Wellbeing and Adult Services and Simon Broad, Assistant Director Adult Services provided an update on the Key Performance Indicators for Quarters 2 and 3.

During the discussion of this item the following points were made:

·       AS1: Social work assessments allocated to commence within 7 days of the requests (counted at point of allocation) – there had been a drop off in performance over the last few quarters.  There had been an increase in complexity in cases.  Steps being taken to rectify this included increased recruitment and improved retention.  Members were reminded that it was a stretch target and Wokingham was performing well above national average.

·       AS3: People aged 65+ who received reablement from the START team following discharge from hospital, and remained at home 91 days later, was on an upward trajectory.

·       AS4: safeguarding timeliness – concerns completed within 2 days.  This target continued to improve.

·       AS7: Proportion of people receiving long term care who were subject to a review in the last 12 months – this was another stretch target and Wokingham was third in the South East.  A small improvement had been made.

·       AS9: Permanent admissions to residential and nursing care homes per 100k population and AS10: Information and Advice at the front door - % of contact referrals closed with ‘NFA – Advice & Information only’ were both performing well.

·       AS11: Proportion of people who use services who receive direct payments – snapshot at end of quarter, was slightly under target.

·       A Member sought an update on action being taken to improve AS7.  Councillor Margetts commented that they were trying to raise the department to the top 25% for all measures.  Simon Broad added that the Council had a statutory responsibility to review all those who received care support.  However, it also needed to be able to respond to care quality concerns which meant that the reviewing team sometimes had to undertake unplanned reviews.  The stretch target for the number of planned reviews needed to be balanced against any unplanned reviews.

·       Members asked if there were any issues around recruitment and retention.  Simon Broad indicated that there was a shortage of Occupational Therapists and Social Workers nationally.  A number of mitigating actions were being taken including the production of a Workforce Development Strategy, reviewing the recruitment website and including videos from different practitioners and advertising on radio.  The Council was trying to be more competitive.

·       Members asked whether the Council had looked beyond the UK for recruitment.  Simon Broad indicated that it was supporting the provider market, which was looking to widen recruitment to overseas.  Lewis Willing, Head of Health & Social Care Integration, added that work was being undertaken on a Workforce Strategy, which included the provider network, and various schemes were in place to ensure appropriate levels of Occupational Therapists and Social Workers.  Nationally it was Social Worker Week and the Council’s social media referred to this.

·       Councillor Margetts commented that KPIs needed to be meaningful.

·       Simon Broad referred to the work around the effectiveness in discharging from hospital.  The Council had consistently outperformed its neighbours in this area.

RESOLVED:  That the Adult Social Care Performance Indicators be noted.