Meeting documents

Apologies were received from Clare Blakeway-Phillips, Ann Whiteley and Tim Williams.

Margaret Morgan-Owen asked about claiming for expenses.  Nadiya Ashraf stated that no one should be out of pocket.  It was agreed that the expenses claim form would be circulated to all members and completed forms returned to Stephen Archibald.  It was also agreed that the claims form would be attached to future agenda packs.

Action:  Clerk

To agree the minutes of the meeting held on 25 January 2012.

The minutes of the meeting held on 25 January 2012 were agreed subject to the following:

Nadiya Ashraf to be added to the list of attendees.

Matters Arising

With regard to the budget for the Learning Disability Service, Nadiya said she had contacted Kerry Stevens, who had passed it on to another person.  She would chase it up again.

Action:  Nadiya Ashraf

With regard to advocacy, Nadia informed members that POhWER had been awarded the contract. She stated that staff would be TUPE’d across. However, this would cause concerns for the viability of some  or the organisations involved.  The service would be different because there was a need to remove some of the steps in order to provide a more accessible service.  The back office services needed to be quicker and a consultant was working on training models, looking towards developing on line resources.  Ian Cormack asked if it could be revealed what was in the specification for the Advocacy and Direct Payments Service and considered it should have been less opaque and should have included input from Service Users and Carers.

Nadiya said the changes in the service specification were for the delivery of all direct payment service, taking into account national good practice and developments in the area of SDS.  There was a contingency in the new contract for resources if services collapsed.  Nadiya said POhWER has a robust training programme and was successful and highly regarded, with a clear structure and delivery programme.  David Jack asked how they would deal with specialist training.  Nadiya said communication plans would be put in place stipulating communication needs. 

With regard to Talkback self advocacy they were funded to 31 March, but would continue to provide support for the Learning Disability Partnership Board.  It was noted that self advocacy for people with learning disabilities was in the contract and Talkback and POhWER were having discussions in this connection.

Richard Brook suggested there was work to be done on how the local market was affected by such decisions and suggested further work should be done on this.  This was not a criticism of the process but a comment on getting it right.  Nadiya suggested that Richard should send in comments if he wished.  Margaret Morgan-Owen said it was not just the market place that was put under stress but also the service users.  Nadiya said the amount of review and change that users are facing is huge and disorientating and the process was difficult to manage.  Richard said this was an opportunity to sit down and analyse and identify what could be done to make a difference and align with modern practice.

With regard to representation on the Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults Board, Richard Brook informed members that he would be attending the May meeting of the Board.

Members discussed membership of the Partnership Board.  It was noted that Ian Cormack and Nadiya Ashraf are Co-Chairmen of the Partnership Board.  With regard to elections to the Partnership Board Nadiya said that because there  ...  view the full minutes text for item 2.

Item not discussed.

Please find attached a paper on the Joint Carers Strategy, together with the Priorities template.

Stephen Archibald gave a background about how the priorities template was drawn up.  A number of carers met to discuss what they considered to be important.  The Executive Partnership Board circulated the template containing six outcomes.  Each Partnership Board is being asked to focus on what is important under each of the headings and to agree to focus on three or less priorities under each of the headings.  Members discussed the template and the following was agreed:

1.                  Helping People to Speak Up and Be Active Citizens

·           To meet with the Cabinet Lead and Senior Officers within the next 12 months to discuss the way commissioning impacts on carers.

·           To increase the number of carer representatives on the Carers Partnership Board to include carers of people from each of the service user groups.

·           The Carers Partnership Board to represent a view to the Hospital Trust on how Carers should be fully involved in the discharge process from hospital and that the carer’s own views and their own needs should be given appropriate weight in the pre-discharge assessment process.

2.                  Supporting Carers

·           To ensure that the equality assessments produced by the Local Authority fully examine the impact of each proposed change on carers as well as for other disadvantaged groups.

·           To deliver a workshop, jointly for carers and professionals, which promotes the view, that family carers should be at the heart of decision making, particularly where capacity is an issue and that the principles of personalisation should be at the heart of services for both carers, as well as for the people they care for.

·           To request and to contribute to a Joint Plan on the provision of Breaks for Carers to be published by the Local Authority and the NHS by the end of September 2012 in consultation with the Carers Partnership Board.

3.                  Day and Employment Opportunities

·           To actively promote and champion the view that carers should be appropriately consulted and represented throughout procurement processes undertaken by the Council, including at the design stage.

·           To review and to ensure, that adequate support, continuity and progress is achieved for carers of young people going through the transition process from children’s to adult services and that the new plan is sustainable in terms of the carer’s contribution.

·           To assess, monitor and highlight any inadequacies during the day opportunity transition process in terms of how changes in services affect carers.

4.                  Housing and Support

·           To open a dialogue with the District Councils to establish their housing (?) provision, allocation and support policies in relation to carers and the people they care for.

5.                  Improving Health

·           To work with BCC lead Commissioners to commission an agreed number of moving and handling courses for carers over the next 12 months.

·           Research best practice regarding carers health checks in primary care and develop a proposal for implementing this in Bucks

·           Support the health of long term carers by establishing a carers breaks scheme  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

13 June 2012 at 9.00am in Mezzanine Room 2, County Hall, Aylesbury, HP20 8UA

Further dates to be advised.

13 June 2012 at 9.30am in Mezzanine Room 2, County Hall, Aylesbury, HP20 8UA.  Future Dates:

12 September 2012 at 9.30am in Mezzanine Room 2

14 November 2012 at 9.30am in Mezzanine Room 1