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 - 26th November 2021

The meeting today included Kate Alcock, Val Smith, and Clare Hall-Davies, along with Mary, Christine, Phil, and Richard from CPIC. We discussed;

• Electric car for home care. Phil has provided some information towards a plan and asked for an update on progress. No new info was available and Val offered to chase.
• Following on from discussions at the Care Home Partnership Board meeting, the Council are looking into how providers can offer incentives to staff that won’t impact on taxation or an individual’s benefits. Providing food during the working day and vouchers that cannot be exchanged for cash (up to the value of £50) were named as possible suggestions.
• Mary updated the meeting on her progress on recruiting from the Philippines as now that they have their sponsor license, they are interviewing 7 candidates today. The process has taken around 4 months, although there seems to be a larger backlog for sponsor applications now compared to previously. There are some additional costs on top of the license, such as Home Office costs, visa, and one-way plane ticket. This amount to roughly £8k per candidate). A free replacement candidate is offered should the first not stay for the minimum 6 month period. Mary noted that they were very careful in selecting their agent. It was also noted that Philippines don’t have care homes like the UK, so most people either have experience of caring for elderly relatives (so dementia experience can be sporadic) or are people that have completed their 4 years nursing training, but have failed the final year qualification and cannot register as a nurse. Phil has had some success recruiting from South Africa, which seems to be a route with lighter costs and red-tape.
• Kate gave an update on IPC3 as the letter(s) of entrustment have been issued. Home Care should receive one letter, care homes will get the same and an additional letter re a testing grant. The funding should be sent to providers next Thursday and be with providers by the following Monday (6^th December). There is also a separate CEV (Clinically Extremely Vulnerable) grant payment that will be issued to care homes at the rate of £100 per bed. This will be very flexible in how providers can spend this. Christine raised the issue that the grant is allocated to Home Care providers based on the number of service users they have, which disadvantages those that deliver long hours of care to fewer clients. Kate acknowledged this and agreed to look into additional payments to those providing 24 hour care, as per the previous IPC grant. It was suggested that this additional payment be extended to anyone delivering 12 hours per day or more.
• Mary noted that there is still no Winter Plan available, however draft versions have been seen at various meetings. It was also noted that providers could give valuable feedback on the viability of the proposed activities and may even be able to suggest alternatives if they were engaged with earlier in the process. Kate agreed to speak with Jonathan Price and Dylan Champion (who is leading on this).
• Christine flagged up comfort boxes and requested to be involved in the further development of the scheme.
• The vaccination Taxi was referenced for people who might struggle to get to their vaccination appointment - https://www.volunteercornwall.org.uk/transport

The next scheduled meeting will take place on the 3rd December 2021.