Councillor Aspinall (Cabinet Member for Health and Adult Social Care) introduced the item and highlighted the following points:

a)    Since April 2024, Adult Social Care had worked with over 13,000 people through assuring people’s physical and mental health, providing day services and making sure people were kept safe through safeguarding processes;

b)    PCC aimed to support people who cared for others including social workers, occupational therapists and, paid staff members in care homes or supported living.

Gary Walbridge (Strategic Director for Adults, Health and Communities) added:

c)    The Care Quality Commission (CWC) started their inspection of PCC’s Adult Social Care in September 2023;

d)    The first approach was to undertake a self-assessment against the CQC framework to help PCC understand where they excelled and needed to make improvements. An improvement plan was made from this procedure;

e)    Partners from the Local Government Association (LGA) would give PCC a peer review on their improvement plan;

f)     One of the Care Act duties was promoting the integration of care and support with health services and in 2015 PCC integrated all its assessment functions with Livewell Southwest;

g)    Plymouth was second best in the Southwest for discharge performance.

Stephen Beet (Head of Adult Social Care and Retained Functions) added:

h)    The CQC were halfway through reviewing every Local Authority Adult Social Care department in the country;

i)     The LGA undertook the peer review in January 2025 where PCC shared 300 documents in advance and included 10 case file audits and 40 meetings with 180 members of staff;

Michelle Thomas (Livewell Southwest) added:

j)     The LGA highlighted how passionate and positive staff were about supporting the people of Plymouth, and how good staff retention rates were;

k)    PCC were exploring available regional data to support benchmarking conversations;

l)     Livewell were focussing on integration and closer collaboration with well-being hubs, primary care family hubs and delivering whole family offers across all services;

m)  All Livewell staff had access to Care Act training;

n)    Livewell and PCC senior managers regularly attended joint briefings as a commitment to communicating their joint development visions.

Geoff Baines (Deputy Chief Executive, Livewell Southwest) added:

o)    Areas of feedback from the CQC inspection included social work practice, equality and diversity recording and waiting times;

p)    Livewell had been delivering health services to asylum seekers through an asylum seeker service;

q)    A Waiting Well policy had been introduced to give people on the waiting list good information about other support services available in the interim;

r)    There had been a 50% reduction in those waiting to be seen within the last 12 months.

 Emma Crowther (Service Director for Integrated Commissioning) added:

s)     The CQC peer reviewers met with PCC’s commissioning providers for care homes and supported living and agreed there was mutual respect and a good, trusting, open relationship;

t)     Gaps in services included specialist care provision with people with complex challenges, and more choices for short breaks and rest bite for people who are caring and cared for;

u)    The Multi-Agency Safeguarding Partnership was recognised;

v)    The message from the peer review what PCC could do more to work with partners more closely;

w)   More clarity was needed on the Adult Social Care vision and strategy to ensure the workforce understood and engaged with processes;

x)    There needed to be more visible leadership and communication through every level of both organisations to ensure frontline social care teams were involved in improvement plans;

y)    There was a priority around occupational therapy and ensuring the work occupational therapists do was visible and well understood.

Andy Williams (Organisational Lead for Adult Social Care, Livewell Southwest) added:

z)    Governance systems were put in place to ensure Adult Social Care was being delivered by Livewell Southwest, with the responsibility sitting with the Local Authority, in the right way;

aa)  Although there were no statutory time frames to measure performance, Livewell Southwest were using 28 days as a benchmark which was the gold standard;

bb)The benchmark for reviews was 12 months even though there was not a statutory time frame for this.

Councillor Aspinall (Cabinet Member for Health and Adult Social Care) added:

cc)  The information provided was discussed at the Health and Adult Social Care Scrutiny Committee;

dd)Recommended the Action Plan be brought back to Cabinet.

In response to questions, it was explained:

ee) Learning had been taken from children’s experiences and services, and other partners;

ff)    There would be a social care therapist and physio at Foulston Park.

Cabinet agreed:

1.    To note the content of the report;

2.    To bring the Action Plan back to the next Cabinet Meeting.