Cornwall Partners in Care News

Cornwall Partners in Care hold weekly briefings with Cornwall Council and Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation trust. These meetings involve Jonathan Price (Joint Director Adult Care and Health for Cornwall Council and NHS Kernow) and occasionally colleagues from the Council, David Smith (CPIC Chairman), and representatives from the CPIC Committee.

Daily update - 8th October 2021

The meeting today included Val Smith and Kate Alcock, along with David, Mary, Christine, and Richard from CPIC. Jonathan Price attended part of the meeting, but had to leave early due to conflicting diary appointments. We discussed;

1. Hospital to Home pre-market engagement. This appeared to have snuck up on Providers and, other than the reference to it in Jonathan Price’s comms earlier this week, not much was known about the event. Kate provided some background as the KCCG want to offer 4-week packages of reablement care to facilitate faster discharges of medically fit people. It was noted that this once again assumes that the Home Care sector has spare capacity sat idle when this really is not the case. It was also questioned why a provider would take a 4-week package over a longer-term package of care. The intention of this proposal is that Providers that could facilitate reablement and actively reduce the care needed during that 4 week period would still be paid the full price, but would gradually free up staff time for other work. More info on the proposal, including details on how Providers can get involved is available at https://www.cornwall.gov.uk/media/bfplhses/hospital-to-home-pre-market-engagement.pdf
2. More money for discharges. Reference to this had been made in other meetings, but it was not clear exactly what this meant. It is possible that people are referring to the additional funding through the NHS to assist proposals like the engagement outlined above, as well as funding for D2A beds and other schemes. Much of this money is managed in the background by Health and the Council and doesn’t really affect Providers directly. This funding is in place until March 22, and will likely be merged into the Better Care Fund longer term.
3. Pay rise for care staff. This has also been referenced at other meetings, but there has not been any clear detail made available. It might be in reference to Boris Johnson’s recent announcement about increasing the minimum wage. Or it might be in reference to some money that may be available through the NHS to support a pay increase for Home Care staff to make them more competitive. The latter is currently only a concept and discussions are ongoing. There are some concerns that any wage increase would only be funded in the short-term and could create both longer term issues and a short-term imbalance with care home wages. There are also concerns that people are hearing different information and figures from different people at different meetings, which is not helpful.
4. Val has been able to obtain some additional funding through COMF for Care Coins so that the offer can be extended and widened. Richard has a meeting with the Care Coins team scheduled for Monday as there are upgrades coming to the system to allow CPIC to allocate coins to individual Providers to spend as they see fit amongst their staff. Val asked in Clare or Carolyn could be invited to join that meeting.
5. It was noted that the system is once again experiencing pressures and CPIC was asked if we could assist with facilitating 30 discharges from hospitals into Care Homes over the weekend. Richard offered to issue an call to arms email across the sector and suggested that a single point of contact within brokerage be provided to make things as simple as possible for providers who may be able to accept admissions. Kate, David, and Richard agreed to meet after this meeting to discuss the logistics.