Partnerships and Communities
‘We understand our duty to collaborate and work in partnership, so our services work seamlessly for people. We share information and learning with partners and collaborate for improvement’.
Partnerships and communities
Partnership working to deliver shared local and national objectives
We work in close partnership with providers across the county, including a six weekly strategic provider forum chaired by the Director of Adults and Health and with attendance from the Assistant Director and Heads of Service in Commissioning, senior leaders from the ICS and senior representatives from adult social care providers within West Sussex. This forum has a strategic focus, provides an opportunity for update and information sharing but also has a focus on shared challenges such as funding, workforce and Covid-19 and with an emphasis on working together to consider solutions. There are also ongoing forums with specialist providers, such as the Learning Disability Partnership Board. Regular newsletters are also shared with the market, which during the pandemic were daily in frequency.
We are an active partner in the ICS and work daily with the ICB. We have active section 75 agreements and commission on behalf of the health and social care system where it is beneficial to the system and to customers and operate on a pooled budget for learning disabilities and mental health services, with joint arrangements for TEC and community equipment services. A significant amount of work has been undertaken between the service and NHS partners in relation to section 75 agreements, with agreed next steps to the future of these agreements.
We have robust partnership arrangements in place with our Public Health Team including monthly meetings between Assistant Directors and Consultants in Public Health; Director of Public Health and Consultant attendance at the six weekly Adults and Health Strategic DLT meeting, and sitting on relevant partnership groups resourced by public health such as the West Sussex Suicide Prevention Steering Group.
We also work actively in partnership with our district and borough council colleagues on housing solutions, supported housing, homelessness support, disabled facilities grants and the development of extra care. We take the lead and host the ‘Changing Futures’ programme on behalf of the other local authorities in Sussex. This enables a focus on people experiencing multiple disadvantages to ensure access to safe, effective solutions through greater co-ordination between commissioning organisations and re-imagining care pathways.
The County Council, in partnership with East Sussex County Council and Brighton & Hove City Council, will receive funding of £1,201,750 following the submission of an expression of interest for funding from the Accelerating Reform Fund. The fund supports innovation in adult social care across England, making person-centred care and support a reality for people who use these services. The Sussex allocation will be used to fund projects to digitalise the carers pathway and increase the use of mainstream technology for carers, as well as support expansion of the provision of shared lives carers schemes over the next two financial years.
Arrangements to support effective partnership working
Innovation and good practice
We have lots of examples of innovation and good practice, including the hosting of the ‘Changing Futures’ programme for the pan-Sussex local authorities focused on multiple disadvantage; our technology enabled care offer; and the development of a hospital discharge care service through a discharge to assess model focused on home first. We want to ensure that we continue our focus on innovation and best practice by testing and trialling opportunities, including ISFs and personal assistants, to tackle our capacity and market challenges.
We have an ambitious vision for growth and development in extra care. Our innovative and dynamic approach developed over recent years has drawn interest from neighbouring authorities. We will build on our existing offer to expand this provision to meet future levels of need and demand to provide a viable, sustainable, and outcomes-focused solution for residents of West Sussex.
There is a well-established offer and a clear commitment to solutions and support for carers, with a clear strategic focus on supporting unpaid carers, which includes short break services, health and wellbeing prevention grants, information and advice and assessments delivered through our partners Carers Support West Sussex.
Provider workforce
The sufficiency of supply in the marketplace is impacted by the workforce challenges being faced by the social care market in West Sussex. Whilst we have already taken steps to support these challenges including previous investment in WSPiC to develop their offer to providers, development of Proud to Care recruitment programme and the evolution into a newly created Great Care Employer Scheme, support for international recruitment and the expansion of our Quality Assurance and Market Support team, we know more is needed to address current and future gaps in workforce. We are therefore starting to develop an overarching care workforce strategy with our partners and stakeholders. This is recognised as an area for improvement which will identify new actions and provide greater oversight of our market support activities through various forums.
Impact of partnership working
Spotlight: Great Care Employer Scheme
During our Market Sustainability Plan discussions, providers identified that recruitment and retention was one of the key sustainability risks to the local (and national) care market. This prompted the development of the Great Care Employer Scheme which was co-produced with WSPiC and through a task and finish group of market providers with input and support from the Quality Assurance and Market Support team.
The scheme enables providers to highlight which of 40+ individual ‘offers’ of good practice that they as employers can offer to prospective job seekers, split across four themes of pay and benefits; job security and flexibility; learning and development; and supported and valued.
This raises the profile of good practice providers, supports recruitment and retention, and challenges providers to look at their own offer and match that of other local providers. Ten providers are already signed up and using the scheme which is being actively promoted and recent discussions with the Department of Work and Pensions has confirmed that it will be a useful tool for job coaches.
The scheme has been recognised as good practice by both Skills for Care and NHS England.
Spotlight: Prevention and Early Support
We have worked with local VCSE organisations, the NHS, Fire Service and colleagues in District and Borough Councils to develop a new charter that ensures we are consistent in our approach to prevention and early support. The charter is the beginning of a collaborative approach and is underpinned by six principles:
- Commitment to a ‘systems approach’ to enabling early support services.
- Prevention is everyone’s business with system-wide governance, shared goals, clear communication pathways, and common language established so that support is consistent for customers and carers
- Services should be easy to access.
- Customers need universal support, including self-serve options, to understand their emerging health and care needs, what early support options are available and advisable, and how to access these.
- Early support should be personalised and strength-based
- Customers and carers are empowered to have more choice and control of their health and care needs.
- Specialist advice should be quality assured
- Information, Advice and Guidance will be consistent, with specialist advice quality assured to ensure people are getting high quality support
- Commitment to equity-oriented service provision
- A commitment to tackle inequality and equity, recognising the differing needs of customers and carers
- Data matters
- Use data to understand our customer’s health and care needs, and their different engagement needs; so that they can understand services that are available and receive the advice, care and/or support they need
Early progress has been made by widening the rollout of the Council Local Information Online (CLiO) system to libraries across the county. CLiO enables council employees, VCSE organisations and other partners to directly access information about prevention and early support services and provide information, advice and guidance to people at the time they need it.
Working with voluntary and community sector (VCSE) groups
We engage with VCSE providers through forums and task groups, however, we want to undertake further collaboration with the VCSE so that we can work together to ensure a variety of quality solutions to support the strengths-based approach for customers through access to the community and a range of alternative solutions. This will include how community assets and the VCSE can support an approach to prevention, in conjunction with the council’s Communities and Public Health directorates.
Spotlight - Commissioning for Better Outcomes
As significant providers of adult social care services in West Sussex, we have built on our partnership with VCSE organisations to collaborate on a new approach to commissioning. In 2023/24, through a series of conversations in partnership boards, workshops and interviews we developed a new ASC Commissioning Strategy that set out our intentions for commissioning adult social care services over the next three years. We have since built on the successful approach by working with providers, including VCSE organisations, to develop Market Position Statements for Extra Care Sheltered Housing, bed-based care and homecare. More recently, we have started working with one VCSE organisation to pilot a new model of care – Individual Service Funds – with a small number of customers. This new model will provide person-centred care at lower cost to the council while delivering better outcomes.