Our challenges and areas for improvement highlighted in the 2021-22 Local Account: Updates

• To manage increasing demand, greater complexity of needs and the impact of the National Living Wage on provider costs, within our available budget.

This is an ongoing issue which is not unique to West Sussex. Our Market Sustainability Plan  summarises the challenges facing the care market and identifies the way that providers and the County Council will work together to address these. We are continuing to support providers through market uplifts.

The priorities in Our Council Plan 2021-25 and the Adult social care strategy 2022-25 steer our decisions and we use data and information on our residents needs to deliver timely, appropriate and effective services, making best use of available resources and achieving value for money.

We will be working with people who use our services and their family and friend carers, to co-design care pathways to improve people’s experiences of accessing and receiving social care support. This includes appropriate signposting to community services, which will help us to manage demand.

We are also strengthening our information, advice and guidance offer with a focus on early support and preventative services, and we continue to embed a strength-based approach to delivering social care which centres on working with people to identify their strengths, capabilities and support networks to enable them to remain independent for as long as possible.

• To support the stability of the provider market in order to meet increasing demand for social care.

See above and also further information in the next section ‘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 Improvement Programme’

• Recruitment and retention of people working across the care sector, including social workers.

We are focussing on quality provision and sustainability of the care market working in partnership with key stakeholders. This includes investment in West Sussex Partners in Care, participation in the national Proud to Care initiative, creation of the Great Care Employer Scheme and support for international recruitment. We have developed an adult social care workforce strategy outlining our ambitions and we have a significant range of learning and development opportunities for staff in all roles and grades.

• Continuing to support the delivery of the Finance and Support Service’s Financial Assessment Improvement Plan.

This is an ongoing area of work. A review of internal processes has been carried out to speed up annual assessment of charges and to provide information in a timely way. We now have additional capacity in the Welfare Benefit Assessment service and the waiting list for financial assessments or reviews is reducing. The impact of the changes is monitored weekly.

• Managing demand for Care Act assessments for social care support for financial assessments and re-assessments.

The increase in demand and complexity of need reflects the national situation and includes waiting times for assessments, including Deprivation of Liberty Safeguarding assessments, services and reviews.  The Government Market Sustainability and Improvement Fund has allocated £5 million to the County Council, a proportion of which will be directed towards the management of waiting times.  

We are implementing a new workflow and assessment tool with a focus on the person rather than a systems-led approach, and we have introduced a risk-based RAG (Red, Amber, Green) rating to ensure that people with urgent needs receive timely assessment and support - prioritisation is based on risk and safeguarding. This has led to much slower increases in waiting times overall, and in some teams, for example, people waiting for an occupational therapy assessment, a reduction.

This is an ongoing area of work for us.

• To improve the experience of young people transitioning from Children’s to Adults’ Services.

Phase 1 of a programme of work which included a review of how we support young people moving from Children’s to Adults’ Services, is complete and we have designed and implemented two new protocols and new ways of working to identify young people without lifelong conditions or disabilities who are likely to have eligible social care needs at 18 years of age. We have also introduced specialist workers for young people aged 15+ years within the Children and Disabilities Service. They will work alongside our adult social care teams to prepare young people for adulthood.

The next phase of the work is being taken forward as part of our Improvement Programme.

• Continuing to deliver adult social care whilst working in collaboration with our NHS partners to provide integrated health and care services and tackle health inequalities.

The five-year Shared Delivery Plan captures our ambitions and priorities to improve the health and wellbeing of local people.  We are prioritising our resources based on the highest population health and care needs. See the Health and Social Care Integration section for more detail.

• Embedding a strength-based approach to working across the service.

Revised guidance, systems and processes were launched in April 2023 and supported by staff training and a development programme. Work to embed strength-based working continues and comprises a key element of our Improvement Programme.

• Reducing the number of people being supported in residential care settings –enabling people wherever possible to live independently and safely in their own homes.

We are working to reduce reliance on traditional forms of standard residential care with increased use of community-based provision, including the development of Extra Care housing and supported living options.

• Our learning disability employment rate is one of the lowest in the country. The Council has made a commitment to improve its recruitment process to employ more people who access social care.

There was an improvement in 2022-23, up from 1.09% in 2021-22 to 2.8% but still falling behind our target of 3.6%.  Supporting people into employment remains a priority for us as stated in our Adult social care strategy 2022-25 and work is underway to address this measure. We work with Supported Employment West Sussex which is a partnership initiative in which Aldingbourne Trust WorkAid and Workability from Impact Initiatives have joined together to provide this type of employment support. Creating more long-term paid employment opportunities is also an ambition in the Sussex Integrated Care Strategy, Improving Lives Together. Supporting people to progress to employment will form a key element of our recommissioning of a day support offer.

• Embedding a culture of participation, involvement and co-production across the service.

We are committed to embedding a culture of co-production and involvement across the service and we are making steady progress towards realising our ambitions.   A set of design principles created with people we support, carers, staff and other stakeholders will underpin the work of the Improvement Programme and will be used to steer proposed service developments.

See the ‘Working together - equality and diversity' section for more details of services to .