Transforming Social Care
You can read all about our aims to transform Adult Social Care in Kingston below and also tell us what you think by using the links at the bottom of the page.
What is Transforming Adult Social Care about?
The Government has said that all local authorities need to change the way that people are offered social care support and set out their proposals in two important papers - ‘Putting People First’ and ‘Transforming Social Care’
The aim is to put people at the centre of social care services and to offer more choice and control of any support arrangements. By doing this, those requiring support will be in a better position to achieve the things that are most important to them in their lives.
The Government has given all local authorities some money over the next 3 years to make these changes happen.
What we are doing
By April 2011 the Government has said that we must achieve four key things. We must make sure we:
- Offer good information and advice to everyone in our community about what local help is available to help people keep independent, safe and well;
- Offer people a little bit of early support to help them keep or get back their independence as quickly as possible, for as long as possible, to prevent them needing a lot of help later;
- Offer people with long term support needs more choice and control about how they are supported to achieve what they want in their life through a ‘Personal Budget’. This is a sum of money that people can use to help them keep independent, safe and well, and;
- Develop a more flexible social care market so that people have a real choice about how they wish to spend their Personal Budget and use everyday services and facilities just like everyone else.
What's happening now?
We have a long history of putting people first in Kingston. We have already achieved some of the aims set out, for example from 1 February 2010 all older and disabled people who are entitled to our help have been able to have a Personal Budget. People with learning disabilities have been enjoying this choice for some time. People who use our mental health services will also soon be offered a Personal Budget.
On January 13 2010, we presented a report to Kingston Council's Executive Committee setting out our plans to meet the Government's four key Transforming Social Care ‘must do’s' . Please find details below:
Information and Access Service
The Information and Advice Service will be the first point of contact for local people and their families looking for information, advice and support on social care services for adults.
People who are in hospital will continue to be supported by our hospital social work team and those needing mental health and drug and alcohol services will continue to go to their GP for advice and support.
The service will be provided by a team of dedicated Information and Access officers who will have the support of professionally trained staff.
It will also provide information or advice, arrange a suitable service, or put people in touch with other local organisations who may be able to help them.
Reablement Service
The Reablement Service will focus on offering people short term and intensive support to live independently in their own home.
Our expectation is that maximising people’s capabilities in this way will minimise their need for more long term support or residential, nursing or hospital care.
The service will be delivered by occupational therapists, physiotherapists, and rehabilitation assistants who will work with people to support them to manage their conditions and live independently.
Support service for Older and Disabled People with long term needs
Our Reablement Service will aim to benefit a lot of people by helping them keep or regain their independence.
Some people may still need ongoing support after using the service, for example, people with dementia, people who are living with the long term effects of a stroke or any other long term condition. In such circumstances our support service for older and disabled people with long term needs will offer people a Personal Budget and work with them to make sure they keep independent, safe and well.
Social care market development
We are working with Kingston Centre for Independent Living and a group of interested voluntary organisations to develop a support service for people using a Personal Budget.
This service will provide help for people looking to make the most of their Personal Budget to achieve what they want in their lives.
We are also working with our local partners to develop the local social care market so that people using Personal Budgets can have a good range of service providers to choose from when looking to arrange their support services.
Reablement and Personal Budgets Pilot
We carried out a pilot this year to test out our approach to Personal Budgets with a group of people currently using adult social care services.
In the pilot, 70 local people needing long-term support had their own Personal Budget to pay for the support services they required in order to be independent.
The pilot also looked at the impact of the new way of working on existing services and functions, using data from 57 participants to create Personal Budgets across the Borough in 2011.
The pilot unveiled some very positive results. The full findings of the report were published in April 2010 and can be found below, together with a summary of the findings.
Tell us what you think!
We are keen to hear what people have to say about our plans. Our 'Tell us what you think' web page tells you about the different ways you can give us your views and comments.
The page also has links to some national information about the Transforming Social Care Agenda and our local report. We look forward to hearing from you!