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), Mary Anson (CPIC Chair), representatives from the CPIC Committee, and occasionally colleagues from the Council.

Daily update - 10th December 2021

The meeting today included Jonathan Price, Val Smith, and Carolyn Montgomerie, along with Mary, Christine, and Richard from CPIC. We discussed;

• A discussion took place around the role and value of the Care Home Partnership Board as attendance has dwindled during recent meetings. It was acknowledged that in it’s original form, chaired by Dr Smith and with regular attendance from colleagues across health and social care, it was an extremely valuable forum for communication and action around the pandemic, but things have morphed into more “business as usual” discussions. It was felt that it might be time to refresh the meeting structure and purpose so that it finds a better fit for providing clear routes of communication and actions to the existing meeting hierarchy. It may also be appropriate to include home care and supportive lifestyles into the meetings. It was noted that with winter pressures upon us, it might be better to prepare shaping something to start towards the end of winter. Action: CPIC to produce a proposal for a meeting structure to replace the Care Home Partnership Board.
• A brief discussion took place around SCALE, the ESF funded project around training that was unfortunately unable to get started. There are no further options available to reignite the bid.
• Providers have reported difficulties in making contact with CAHSC. It was noted that Bev has been on sick leave recently.
• Val and Carolyn updated the meeting on proposals around Holistic Recruitment, feeding on from discussions last week around homeless communities that may be willing to enter the care workforce with the right support behind them. It was noted that there is still lots to consider for this approach to ensure that the appropriate support is available for individuals. Jonathan quoted the Fifteen model that was so successful at supporting people into work in the hospitality sector. The accommodation pods were discussed as these could create small communities, however there would be risks associated with care providers who housed these pods onsite to provide accommodation to staff if those staff subsequently ceased their employment. It would unreasonable to expect providers to evict people back into homelessness. Christine noted that there is also people undertaking adult social care training that would be available for up to 100 hours of placement time. Action: Val offered to put Christine in touch with Belinda who is leading on this activity for the Council.
• Christine made a plea to push the Blue Light card for the care workforce once again as there are some real benefits and discounts available that could be very helpful in the run up to Christmas.

The next scheduled meeting will take place on the 17^th December 2021.

The next scheduled meeting will take place on the 10^th December 2021.