Our Partners in Care and Health programme (PCH) supports councils to improve the way they deliver adult social care and public health services and helps Government understand the challenges faced by the sector. The programme is funded by Government and support is offered to councils without charge.
Overview
Our Partners in Care and Health programme (PCH) has continued to provide a trusted network for developing and sharing best practice, developing tools and techniques, providing support and building connections.
Priority areas for 2022/23 included:
- strategic workforce planning
- people with learning disabilities and autism
- markets and commissioning
- adult safeguarding
- public health and prevention
- finance and resources.
Highlights
During 2022/23, our Partners in Care and Health programme (PCH):
- delivered more than 140 bespoke support packages to one or more councils (including more than 120 individual councils and 20 region-wide support packages)
- provided 21 universal offers or products to the sector
- hosted more than 50 events, with more than 8,000 attendees attending
- attracted more than 80,000 visits to PCH webpages.
Case study – Safeguarding adults and improving the quality of safeguarding practice
How was the need for this support identified?
Care and health improvement advisers (CHIAs) are crucial to the support we provide through PCH. In this instance, CHIAs were pivotal in identifying specific adult safeguarding priority areas with local directors of adult social services (DASS). The benefit or outcome of the work was scoped in how this relates to the Care Quality Commission's (CQC's) inspection framework and how this will be evidenced and reported.
What was the issue?
The council wanted to provide an evaluation of the quality of safeguarding practice, in particular around Making Safeguarding Personal (MSP) practice and the voices of service users. The council wanted to ensure that Making Safeguarding Personal practice was captured and embedded throughout an individual’s journey. They are keen to embed this as the referral for the individual progresses from the contact centre and/ or Assessment and Care Management teams, into the dedicated Safeguarding team.
What support has been delivered so far and who is involved?
The council’s request was reviewed by the Partners in Care and Health team. The plans to undertake the review were discussed and managed with the director of adult social services (DASS) – or their delegate – and the care and health improvement adviser (CHIA) and the region. The review was undertaken and completed at the end of March 2023.
What difference do you think this will make?
We intend for this work to result in:
- an increase in the number of Making Safeguarding Personal (MSP) surveys completed
- improved consistency of approach taken by teams and partners
- enhanced training and learning offer on MSP approaches
- voice of the person is captured
- consistency in how MSP is audited and assured from the safeguarding adults board and adult social care
- forecast on safeguarding enquiries change from outcome
- evidenced within the data of our safeguarding adults board's quarterly performance report.
What are the next steps?
Implementation of recommendations ongoing. The DASS or region and CHIA will provide feedback on the impact and benefit of the work to the PCH safeguarding team.
