Challenges and areas for improvement highlighted in the 2022-23 Local Account: Looking ahead and what's happening in 2023-24 as part of our programme of improvement

• Hospital discharge – further work on the process

Our work on hospital discharge processes aims to prevent people remaining in hospital longer than necessary and our approach is centred on cross-system partnership working. In 2022-23 we supported over 4,000 discharges from hospital but we appreciate that there is more work to do in this area. We are part of the national improvement programme which is in place across Sussex via the ‘Discharge Forerunner’ scheme to deliver rapid and sustainable improvements with progress monitored on a weekly basis. See the ‘Supporting people to leave hospital’ information in the ‘Wellbeing, prevention and independence’ section.

• Supporting people with lifelong disabilities

To address the insufficient supply of supported living options – we are holding regular market engagement events to address this issue, particularly with regard to the accommodation needs of young people transitioning from Children’s to Adults’ Services, for people with complex needs and to avoid hospital admissions.

Development of a local model of peer support  (the help and encouragement that people with lived experience of care provide to one another) - we are in the early stages of developing a local model informed by recommendations from people we support.

• Supporting providers and the care market: Commissioning (the planning, purchasing and monitoring of services to meet people’s needs).

The priorities in our Adult social care strategy 2022-25 underpin our decision making and our focus for improvements and budget spend. It sets the context for the development of a new co-produced commissioning strategy. We are also working alongside our NHS partners to develop a number of market position statements.  These will provide information, intelligence and analysis of local health and social care needs and potential future development opportunities for current and prospective providers. We will ensure that commissioned services address inequalities.

For more information see ‘The workforce – our staff and providers’ section.

• Keeping people safe from neglect and abuse: safeguarding

We will be working to embed feedback from people we support into the safeguarding processes.