Home > Adult Social Care > What Supports Independent Living?

What Supports Independent Living?

The direction of government policy is clear and is set out in several key policy documents including 'Putting People First' and 'Our health, our care, our say', There is an expectation that Councils and PCTs will make a strategic shift towards early intervention and prevention as the cornerstone of public services.

The intention of this project is to make a positive difference and a significant impact through practical actions to locate the social inclusion and citizenship of vulnerable people as central to all North East Council's and Health Authority's corporate business and to meet the improved health and well being requirements of the White Paper "Our Health, Our Care, Our Say".

The project seeks to identify what primary and secondary preventative approaches are effective to avoid the development of longer term dependency and therefore deflect people from inappropriately entering the social care system.

The objectives of this project are to:

  • Understand the range of preventative services both in the region and nationally which lie outside direct Adult Social Care and Health provision
  • Evidenced identification of three key service changes which will prevent or delay North East citizens entering the social care and health system therefore saving NHS acute care and local authority costs
  • Identification of the key service leaders and their teams whose behaviour needs to alter to make those changes happen
  • The creation of a product(s) or service(s) that will help that culture change
  • The consistent implementation of those changes across all 12 Local Authority areas in the North East region
  • Develop an implementation plan for the region which includes a marketing approach across local authorities and partners to promote inclusion by engaging a wider audience in prevention

(Specific outputs and outcomes for this project are shown at the bottom of this page.)

The project is one of only six national pioneers that have been approved for involvement in the Public Services by Design programme (PSD). PSD is a new programme to inspire and enable design innovation in public services. As part of the programme, the project has benefited from hands-on support and mentoring from the Design Council, approved design management experts. The programme helps those involved in the design and commissioning of public services to look at the complexities of delivering a service from the perspective of those who use and provide it. Working in a collaborative and interactive way, design helps to develop an insightful, inclusive set of opportunities and solutions that effectively balance the needs of the user and the provider.. Find out more here.

In order to achieve its obejctives and aims, the delivery of this project has been split into four work packages, though actual delivery of phases is likely to overlap as they are all connected:

  • Work package 1 - research into what services make the biggest difference to wellbeing and inclusion
  • Work package 2 - Identifying and overcoming Barriers and the benefits
  • Work package 3 - Who/What has to change and what do they need to do?
  • Work package 4 - Evaluation

 

Work Package 1 - research into what services make the biggest difference to wellbeing and inclusion

Work package 1 centred around gaining an understanding of the non-health and social care preventative services that can make the biggest difference to well-being and inclusion.

In order to achieve this a web-based survey was conducted that identified 83 services that supported independent living in the region.( Click here to download the summary of responses to the survey ) .

From these a total of 25 services, which met one or more of the criteria shown below, were selected for inclusion in the report:

  • Prevention or delay of the development of long-term conditions.
  • Delivery of efficiencies for local authorities and health services through the avoidance or prevention of costly social care intervention.
  • Value for money.
  • Evidenced outcomes for individuals, authorities and an area/locality.
  • Building social inclusion.
  • Sustaining or improving wellness.

From this list of 25, 3 services were identified for inclusion in later work packages where they will be looked at in more detail. Find out more about the 3 exemplar services here.

In addition to the survey, two workshops were held to explore some of the issues in relation to services that support independence

To see the presentation given at the workshops click here.

Work Package 1 is now complete and a final report has been produced

This report identifes the evidence for effectiveness. Key messages from the evidence include:

  • Prevention and early intervention services need to address the spectrum of need from promoting access to universal services for the general population through to addressing complex needs.
  • A broad range of services have a key contribution to make in delivering prevention and early intervention including housing, leisure, transport and community safety.
  • Involving users and carers at all stages is essential to ensure that services reflect their needs and wishes.
  • A 'whole systems approach' is needed to maximise the impact of investment in this area. This places these services within the context of the Sustainable Community Strategy (SCS) and Local Area Agreement (LAA)..

Download a copy of the full report here

Download a summary of the report here

Click here to see a presentation detailing the work of Work Package 1

 

Work package 2 - Identifying Benefits and overcoming Barriers

An integral part of this project is exploring the benefits of information, leisure, sports and cultural services as preventative services. This element of the project aims to ensure we arrive at meaningful quantification of benefits in order to produce an effective, robust planning tool for future interventions.

 

 

For more information on this project contact:

Julie Brown, Programme Manager, Adult Social Care. Telephone 07917 813 667

The project aims to deliver the following:

Outputs

  • Report which takes the DPH health commentaries, the regional health picture and identifies which services can make a difference.
  • Identification of top 3 services to be tackled by this project.
  • Systematic analysis of what are the barriers to adults with social care needs participating?
  • Creative perspective on what is best practice in overcoming those barriers, based on evidence based practice
  • Analysis of who benefits and in what way, using robust financial and non-financial data
  • A specific list of the target audience
  • Creative solutions and implementation plans to the tackle the top 3 areas that have the biggest impact in terms of supporting independent living, challenging organisations and systems that need to change to make a difference
  • Evaluation report which identify the financial and non-financial benefits for Las, Health and service users and carers.
  • Engagement with all 12 Councils and PCTs and other appropriate organisations whose activities make a contribution to improved well-being

Outcomes

  • Identification of potential efficiency savings and action to seek to deliver them
  • To help people so that they do not need to access intensive and specialist health and social care services longer term
  • Contribution to improved performance of the following national indicators: 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,11, 24, 119, 124, 137, 139, 142, 155, 160 and 175
  • Promoting collaboration between partners
  • Encouraging innovation
  • Utilising mutual support and challenge
  • Engendering trust between authorities
  • Providing a catalyst for change
  • Bringing down organisational, departmental or geographical barriers
  • Spreading best practice
  • Tackling under performance in terms of the region's health and well-being

The project also seeks to identify the following based on tangible evidence:

  • The key barriers to adults with social care needs participating in these services for example, cost, physical access, transport, no connections to the networks that support specific activities
  • Good practice in overcoming those barriers for example, differential pricing, quality of adaptations, specialist equipment, engagement with specific networks
  • The specific benefits for all citizens for example, increased participation and social inclusion, increased income, better health and wellbeing, more skilled staff, and greater social capital
  • Who or what has to change and being clear on what has to be done differently and identifying leaders in the region who need to take action
  • What is needed to support the change other than "increased awareness" which may include training, mentoring, role and service remodelling, financial remodelling and investment and proactive recruitment campaigns
  • How success will be measured and building on the preventative approaches that have worked