Adult social care annual report 2010 to 2011

Interests

Social care includes a wide range of services designed to help people:

Maintain their independence
Play a full part in society
Protect them in vulnerable situations
Manage complex relationships

The people we support have extra needs arising from age, learning and physical/sensory disabilities, long-term physical and or mental health conditions.

For many of us, if we have a social care problem, it is often complicated and not just about social care. We may be lonely and afraid to go outside. We may have physical health problems which can stop us doing the things we enjoy. We may have difficulty finding something useful to do - such as a job, education or voluntary work. We may have problems with where we live - maybe we find it hard to take a bath, or problems with money - not enough to heat our home. There is no easy solution to many of these problems but they all have an effect on our mental and physical well-being.

In Salford we are very proud of the way we work with Salford citizens and with other organisations such as the police, the NHS and the voluntary sector. We believe that by working together we can find better outcomes that work longer term, improve citizens' wellbeing and are cost effective.

Many of the projects and service you will read about in this annual report are provided by a partnership of organisations and city council departments and we want to recognise their contributions to the directorate's vision:
"improving the life chances of Salford citizens and promoting the independence of individuals and communities in Salford through choice and control."

We have organised the report around our five priorities:

The national context

Personalisation is a new way of delivering public services. It is already how ‘we do' adult social care and it is being expanded to cover other services in the NHS and in children's social care. Instead of offering people a one size fits all service and asking them to fit, it's about delivering services and support that is right for each person.

"We place a huge premium on efficient, effective and integrated service delivery alongside partnership working to support the contribution of individuals, their families, carers and the wider community - reducing the need for acute health and care support. We will need to focus heavily on reducing duplication and improving outcomes. Targeted joint prevention strategies and effective provision of information and advice will be critical to support the changes to service delivery models. Providers - large and small - will need to offer an increasingly flexible and wider range of good value services developed with the people who use them, with the independent sector greatly extending its reach." Think Local, Act Personal Partnership.

The government published its vision for adult social care which is built on seven principles:

Prevention: empowered people and strong communities will work together to maintain independence. Where the state is needed, it supports communities and helps people to retain and regain independence.

Personalisation: individuals not institutions take control of their care. Personal budgets, preferably as direct payments, are provided to all eligible people. Information about care and support is available for all local people, regardless of whether or not they fund their own care.

Partnership: care and support delivered in a partnership between individuals, communities, the voluntary and private sectors, the NHS and councils - including wider support services, such as housing.

Plurality: the variety of people's needs is matched by diverse service provision, with a broad market of high quality service providers.

Protection: there are sensible safeguards against the risk of abuse or neglect. Risk is no longer an excuse to limit people's freedom.

Productivity: greater local accountability will drive improvements and innovation to deliver higher productivity and high quality care and support services. A focus on publishing information about agreed quality outcomes will support transparency and accountability.

People: we can draw on a workforce who can provide care and support with skill, compassion and imagination, and who are given the freedom and support to do so. We need the whole workforce, including care workers, nurses, occupational therapists, physiotherapists and social workers, alongside carers and the people who use services, to lead the changes set out here.

The Dilnot report into fair funding of care has been published and makes a number of recommendations. We recognise the difficulties that people can face, paying for long-term care and support and we have addressed this through our income maximisation work and by improving the quality of information available to people who fund their own care.

The future

For 2011 to 2012, we have changed our priorities slightly:

Neighbourhoods and communities / life chances
Personalisation (think local / act personal)
Health and wellbeing / public health
Commissioning for integration, strategically and in localities
Managing reduced resources and transforming services

We need to support citizens better and do so for less, which means finding new ways of doing it.

Our top priority is to achieve better outcomes for Salford people and to help them have more confidence and aspirations about our city. People are citizens first, living in our communities all across the city.

Despite the funding constraints, we are making innovative improvements, continuing to provide a wide range of universal services and protecting the most vulnerable in the city.