Agenda and minutes

Venue: Conference Room 3 and 4 - Civic Centre. View directions

Contact: Ed Grimshaw, Democratic Support Officer  Tel:- 023 8083 2390

Items
No. Item

20.

Minutes of the Previous Meeting (including matters arising) pdf icon PDF 58 KB

To approve and sign as a correct record the minutes of the meeting held on 7 December 2017 and to deal with any matters arising, attached.

Minutes:

RESOLVED: that the minutes for the Panel meeting on 7 December 2017 be approved and signed as a correct record.

21.

Local Safeguarding Adults Board (LSAB) Annual Report - 2016/17 pdf icon PDF 67 KB

Report of the Independent Chair of the LSAB introducing the 2016/17 Annual Report.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Panel considered the report of the Independent Chair of the LSAB introducing the 2016/17 Annual Report.

 

Robert Templeton (Independent Chair of the LSAB), Emma Gilhespy (Business Coordinator, Local Safeguarding Children Board), Francesca Mountfort (Information Analyst) and Joe Hannigan were in attendance and, with the consent of the Chair, addressed the meeting.

 

The Panel noted that the Board’s Chair had changed within the last 12 months and requested that the new Chair review and discuss a number of matters including:

 

·  The new Independent Chair of the Board’s initial comments on the position of adult social care and safeguarding provision within the City;

·  The increasing possibilities for interaction and information exchange between the regions Local Safeguarding boards;

·  Increasing the involvement of service users to develop the Board’s Plans and Strategies and a need for Adult Social Care Packages to reflect and support the cultural heritage of clients;

·  The style and format of the report.  The Panel encouraged the authors to use a more consistent and plainer English within future reports, but acknowledge that parts of the report had been written under a different Chair. The Panel acknowledged that there was still an issue with the quality of some of the data collected but indicated that the use of specific data sets within the report would support the narrative of the report;

·  The Panel’s concerns over the terminology used with the report to describe financial abuse of those in care.  The Panel recognised the difficulties supporting clients to make their own financial choices was balanced against the possibility of the client making poor choices.  The Panel questioned officers on what levels of safeguarding existed to reduce the risk of vulnerable adults being taken advantage of financially;

·  The Panel’s concerns over the issue of neglect and isolation.  The Panel recognised the dangers caused by isolation, particularly for older members of society outside of formal care, and noted that there had been a scrutiny inquiry into the matter in 2017;

·  The Panel sought clarification on whether there were any noticeable impacts that could be attributed to recent changes within the benefit system.  Officers responded that there was no strong evidence at this stage; and

·  The value of the work undertaken by different agencies such as the Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service in reaching out to clients.

 

RESOLVED that the Panel

 

(i)  Noted the Local Safeguarding Adult Board report;

(ii)  Recommended that for future reports care be taken to ensure that a clearer and more consistent use of plain English is used and that findings are supported by data;

(iii)  Noted the involvement of agencies such as the Hampshire and Fire and Rescue Service;

(iv)  Recommend that the Board seek to increase involvement of service users in the workings of the LSAB, and find a way to report their voice within the report; and

(v)  Recommended that the Board review how the cultural requirements of its service users could be better reflected in their care packages.

22.

Substance Misuse Services in Southampton pdf icon PDF 420 KB

Report of the Director of Quality and Integration providing the Panel with an update on the development of substance misuse services in Southampton.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Panel considered the report of the Director of Quality and Integration providing the Panel with an update on the development of substance misuse services in Southampton

 

Katy Bartolomeo (Senior Commissioner - Integrated Commissioning Unit (ICU)), Jackie Hall (Commissioner ICU) Charlotte Matthews (Public Health Consultant) and Stephanie Ramsey (Joint Associate Director of the ICU and Director of Quality and Integration) were in attendance and, with the consent of the Chair, addressed the meeting.

 

The Panel discussed a number of matters including:

 

·  The effects of the 2017/18 budgetary adjustments.  Officers explained that a review and redesign of the service had mitigated to a large extent the effects of the budget savings.  The Panel was informed that it seemed that were no detrimentally significant effects of the budgetary amendments;

·  How the Council’s drugs and alcohol strategies had informed the redesign of the service and how the latest review of the service aimed to further align the aims of the strategies and the continued drive for improvement; 

·  How the Council’s performance compared with the performance of the City’s comparator authorities.  The Panel noted that the Council’s service performance was in line with its comparators;

·  The Panel noted that the review of the substance misuse services had combined two services and that the budgetary savings came from back office costings and had little effect on the service users.  It was explained that figures indicated that there had been some decrease in the numbers of cases undertaken but, there was a strong indication that quality of the support offered had continued to reduce the numbers of clients being re-referred to the service;

·  The Panel sought a better understanding of the timetable for the forthcoming review; 

·  The Panel noted that there was a significant level of data that supported the service that was not circulated at the time of the report and thanked officers for their offer to circulate the Dashboard’s for the strategies;

·  It was noted that the report’s use of the phrase “confidence intervals” referred to the measure of certainty of the information.  It was explained that the collection of information had varied levels of accuracy and that the confidence interval referred to a measure of the likelihood of a statistic or measure being accurate;

·  The Panel discussed how the strategies reflected the increasing age range of those dependent on drugs and noted the process undertaken to help those with a dependency.  It was further noted that a clarity from Central Government on good practice could enable more dynamic and effective strategies; and

·  The Panel discussed how partnership working locally and nationally had responded to potential threats to the City from new and dangerous drugs such as Fentanyl.

RESOLVED that the Panel noted the report and stated that it would continue to monitor the performance of the service and would review the forthcoming strategies at an appropriate meeting.