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 - 23rd July 2021

We had our meeting in the afternoon so we were all slightly "demob happy" and looking forward to the weekend. Jonathon sent his apologies so it was Kate and Val speaking with Christine and myself. We discussed the following;

1. Kate is looking to develop a "toolkit" to provide a quick summary of services outside normal care support which are available. This will primarily be for Providers and Social Work teams.
   Kate will also organise a Friday meeting themed session to look at how we can utilise voluntary capacity through locality clusters, and to encourage more volunteers to come forward.Kate also explained that she is exploring how volunteers can help navigate people through the system.
2. Phase 4 of the Control of Infection fund to provide support up to the end of September is about to be signed off. There will be similar arrangements as before with a new Act of Entrustment.
   Kate explained that unspent money is having to be returned, and asked if there could be a mechanism where underspends could be reduced. It was suggested that Amy Claridge contact Richard to see if a joint approach could help with this problem. Christine asked if some of the unspent funding could be used as a discretionary element to provide more support for those providing more 1 to 1 care as they have been disadvantaged by the funding formula.
3. A Provider had expressed concerns regarding increasing Covid cases resulting in an inability to take new admissions during an outbreak, and that this situation could continue for some time to come leading to financial implications for Providers. Kate was aware of this and suggested that lists could be prepared of suitable placements for when restrictions are lifted to reduce the lead time in filling beds. The period of restriction had also been reduced from 28 to 14 days.
4. Test and Trace "pinging" guidance will be available next week to provide a risk based approach to demonstrate exceptional circumstances as laid out by the Director of Public Health to allow workers to return.
5. The 3% pay increase for NHS staff will place further pressure on social care recruitment.
6. I stated that safeguarding alerts from SWAST staff were still commonplace placing additional stress on Providers, and that the Independent Sector would seem to be receiving a larger proportion of such referrals than the NHS. A freedom of information request had been submitted to substantiate this.  Kate agreed to raise this with Emma Goodall and Julie Davies to see if lower level concerns could be channeled through alternative channels to relieve workload pressures on the Safeguarding Unit. It was suggested that this could be discussed at a future Friday meeting.