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 – 19^th August 2022

The meeting today included Kate Alcock, Sarah Scoltock, Val Smith along with Mary, Phil, Christine, and Richard from CPIC. Apologies were received from Carolyn Montgomerie, Clare Hall-Davies, and Tanya Dawson-Sheehan We discussed;

• Deferred payments. Following on from discussions last week, the Council are not aware of any payment issues within their own systems. Issues tend to arise where service users don’t plan in advance how their care will be paid for once the initial 12 week period ends. It was suggested that providers should ask families earlier, however providers reported that information from families can be sporadic and incomplete. Action: Richard to check with the sector how widespread this problem of deferred/delayed payment is across the sector. Mary asked if any information is available for providers to share with families to help them plan and deal with families. Kate confirmed towards the end of the meeting that some information is available from within the Council and will send it to CPIC for onward circulation. Kate also confirmed that if a placement is at risk (due to funding queries), the Council can issue without payments whilst the family is going through the courts to get things sorted.
• It was note that with the current cost of living crisis, some staff feel safer remaining on benefits, especially with some of the add-on benefits that go alongside this.
• Training is being pushed hard across the sector which is a positive thing, however with the staffing crisis providers do not have the capacity to be releasing staff for training at the moment.
• Kate gave an update on the Fair Cost of Care, which has picked up slightly recently as we approach the final deadline. Langbuisson are still working with a number of providers and have a list of who will and won’t do it (and the reasons why).
• The first meeting of the Provider Advisory Group took place which has been set up to look at the Market Sustainability Plan. There was not as many providers present as hoped for however Christine did not receive an invitation – Kate will make sure Christine is added to the invite list.
• Mary requested further information and involvement on any winter pressures planning as providers and the wider system need to start planning as soon as possible.
• Some of the original block contracts are due to expire at the end of September when they will revert to Business As Usual. Additional pump-primed blocks will then become available.
• Kate also outlined that the Council has some funding available to support innovative ways to help with increasing workforce capacity. Any suggestions and ideas welcome.
• There was a discussion around safeguarding being used as a weapon against providers (not always intentionally direct, but always with the same starting point of the “the provider is in the wrong”, and often without any consideration to the situation and circumstances surrounding the issue). Kate offered to invite someone from the safeguarding team to a future Friday meeting.
• Kate has received a response regarding Raizer Chairs and it has been confirmed that the Care Homes will own the chairs. There was no direct response to the question around who has the responsibility for servicing etc, but if the home owns the chairs it seems reasonable that this would fall onto the provider. Kate has chased clarity re servicing and whether providers have been informed of the situation.
• Sarah talked about the Transfer of Care Hubs that will be locality based and are effectively an evolution of the previous CCC. The Transfer of Care Hubs will shortly be piloting discharges.
• Phil gave an update to the situation regarding the recent cyber-attacks that affected parts of the NHS and some providers and other businesses. His own business was affected and they are part-way through a recovery process that is expected to be completed by mid-September. Thankfully his business has managed to not miss a single visit.

The next scheduled meeting will take place on the 26th August 2022.