Cornwall Partners in Care News

Cornwall Partners in Care hold weekly briefings with Cornwall Council and Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation trust. These meetings involve Kate Alcock (Head of Strategic Commissioning – Older People, Physical Disability and Carers), Mary Anson (CPIC Chair), representatives from the CPIC Committee, and occasionally colleagues from the Council and Health.

Daily update - 22nd April 2022

The meeting today included Kate Alcock and Carolyn Montgomerie, along with Mary, Phil, and Richard from CPIC. Clare Hall-Davies sent her apologies. We discussed;

• Care staff are the only workforce required to self-isolate with Covid-19 without any sick pay. In some cases, social care staff are to self-isolate for up to 48 hours even with a negative test. Some providers are paying full pay during isolation in order to prevent staff from moving to sectors where self-isolation is not a requirement or where self-isolation is paid for. This is yet another cost pressure that providers are having to deal with, however not all providers can afford to cover full pay for people who are self-isolation. The risks are go further into financial difficulties to pay staff or lose staff to another sector with better covid/sick-pay schemes.
• It was noted that the policies are not linked to the impact they are having.
• Kate offered to escalate the above situation to Steve Peddie and higher to help raise awareness of the impact that policy decisions are having. Richard sent Kate copies of CPIC’s cost pressures report and response to the fee uplift.
• Mary offered to highlight these issues at the next ICC and ICS meetings.
• It is business are usual for everyone except care.
• Mary asked who from the Council would be attending the new care home ICC meetings. Kate and Carolyn have been invited but have dairy clashes for the next one. Tanya Dawson-Sheehan is also scheduled to attend and it was noted that the locality commissioning managers may benefit from attending too. The care home ICC is intended to be at an ‘operational level’, but it is not yet clear what level this is. Strategic partners have been invited to the meeting, however there are some notable exceptions. The meeting is led by Health.
• Mary circulated a paper by Stephen Clague (an independent accountant) on the outcomes of the recent bonus for healthcare staff depending on their benefits situation. On average, the bonus worked out to £298.52 per person. The take home element of this bonus varied between £33 for people on some traditional benefits, through to £71 for people on Universal Credit, to £166 for people not on any benefits. This clearly highlights the impacts that bonuses and pay increases have on individual members of staff. One provider reported that 35% of their staff are on some form of benefits.
• A discussion took place around the Inland Revenue previously investigating employers who provided meals for some staff (as a benefit in kind) as some fell foul of the rules. One provider locally was fined £7,000 and another fined £16,000.
• Kate reported that the new Strategic Director might be in post earlier than expected and that the new Council structure should be available in the next couple of weeks.
• Carolyn reported on a new Proud to Care campaign targeting the recruitment of under 25’s. There will be some focus groups in the near future and CPIC have been asked to help identify some providers that might be interested in getting involved.
• Kate has offered to attend the CPIC forums next week and would like to discuss the new community based support project at the Dom Care Forum. As the Residential Forum has been moved to Thursday, Kate is not able to attend.

The next scheduled meeting will take place on the 29th April 2022.