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 – 23rd September 2022

The meeting today included Kate Alcock, Sarah Scoltock, Carolyn Montgomerie, and Vicki Kellow, along with Mary, Christine, and Richard from CPIC. We discussed;

• Following CPIC’s meeting with Alison Bulman and Rachel Rothero, Kate noted that there will be a rethink around the frequency and representation at what is currently a weekly meeting. These meetings grew from an initial weekly discussion between Jonathan Price and David Smith (CPIC Chair at the time). When David retired, other CPIC committee members filled in for David to represent the Care Home, Dom Care, and Supportive Lifestyle sectors, with Richard there to take notes. Kate feels that the meetings are a useful weekly catchup to hear from providers direct, citing that often she hears about things far quicker than through the usual channels as CPIC (and in particular, Mary) has useful links with national organisations and groups. This is really useful in helping prepare for upcoming situations. It was agreed to continue ‘as is’ until decisions about the future direction of the group have been made.
• Mary reported on a CPIC meeting with Derek Thomas MP and an overseas training and recruitment agency from India. It was a very useful meeting and they have Nurses ready to work in the UK, including some that may not make the cut for NMC registration, but who would be very interested in working a senior healthcare. There were supplementary discussions around housing as some providers have land and there are already some projects in the works around pods and temporary housing. What is not clear yet is whether this accommodation is planned solely for local people or could be used to being in overseas staff to care for people locally. Some fleshing out of the details is needed and Derek Thomas MP plans to talk with Olly Monk (Portfolio holder for Planning and Housing) to determine some of the finer details.
• Kate discussed Fair Cost of Care which is causing some headaches as the low volume of data received is making it difficult to generate a statistically viable figure for the fair cost of care locally. There are also some issues around the different meanings of Fair Cost of Care between the Care Act and the Government guidance on the fair costs of care exercise. It was also noted by providers that the there were serious issues with the paperwork once LangBuisson transferred data to their own spreadsheets. In some cases, it was taking an hourly rate into the field for total wage costs. In another, a cleaning bill for a small care home was being multiplied many fold into several hundred thousand pounds. It was noted that the low return locally was on a par with other local authorities in the region and across the whole country.
• In today’s mini budget, the UK Government have announced 38 Investment Zones which will benefit from lower taxes and improved development, and Cornwall is one of the areas listed. It is not yet clear what this means or how it will be funded, managed, etc, but if it could help the sector with recruitment and housing it could be a real benefit to Cornwall.
• Kate left the meeting.
• A discussion took place around the difficulties that providers are experiencing in getting commissioners to listen and act in situation like having a service user in the wrong placement. In some recent cases, it is only when the provider gives notice on a service user that the system springs into action. If the support was available when the situation was first raised, it may not have escalated to such a point.
• There was also a discussion around the safeguarding process as many providers are feeling that it is not currently working at all. One provider reported a situation when their received safeguarding paperwork with incorrect service user listed against their service. This information was shared with other local services, despite the provider being assured that it wouldn’t be.

The next scheduled meeting will take place on the 30th September 2022.