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The £1million Welsh Assembly Government fund aims to improve access to health and social care services in rural areas through the use of new technology, collaboration between services, local innovation and national coordination, recognising the important role that local people and communities play in this.
The Rural Health Plan, a key One Wales commitment, looks at how a range of services including hospitals, GP practices, district and community nursing, therapy services, palliative care and community mental health support can be delivered most effectively within rural communities.
Thirteen local projects are to receive a share of £525,000 from the fund, with a further £200,000 for the Hywel Dda and Powys Health Board areas to pilot integrated models of care between health and social care to support rural communities. £100,000 will be allocated for national coordination and evaluation of the rural innovation projects and the remaining funding will be used to support innovation emerging from the Rural Health Implementation Plan.
The projects to be funded include:
In North Wales:
- A community-based service for people experiencing suicidal thoughts following self-harm;
- A tele-rehabilitation video conferencing system to allow those in rural areas to access advice on issues such as the delivery and maintenance of wheelchairs;
- Help for people to manage their health conditions and support care requirements in their own homes and Community outreach services to deliver a range of health services into rural areas.
In Mid-Wales:
- Patients in Powys will be able to access ‘hospice at home’ palliative care services;
- Additional training will be provided to nurses to become emergency nurse practitioners at Llandrindod Hospital with telemedicine links to Hereford Hospital and Powys out-of-hours services;
- An electronic link will be set up between the x-ray department at Llandrindod Hospital and larger district general hospitals to speed up access to diagnosis.
In South and West Wales:
- Three rural community ‘hubs’ at Aneurin Bevan Health Board to engage local people in community health and well being, provided through volunteer village wardens and a home visiting scheme;
- Investment to allow paramedics in Powys and the Hywel Dda Health Board areas to more efficiently refer patients to local services and support, particularly those provided by volunteers;
- Support for rural carers in Ceredigion (including a survey of existing services).
All Wales:
- Telemedicine use will be extended across rural areas of Wales to improve quality of care and keep health care local, reducing travel time for patients and health professionals;
- Community pharmacies will pilot a range of innovative services to maximise their role in the community in South Gwynedd, Powys and West Wales.
The projects were recommended by the Rural Health Implementation Group following an evaluation of the bids received.
Edwina Hart said:
“The range of projects funded will help develop new ways of providing services, improving access to services for those living in rural areas.
“I expect that people will see a real difference as these projects are developed.
“I look forward to receiving further recommendations over the coming months on how to utilise the remaining funding.”
Elin Jones, Minister for Rural Affairs, said:
“Providing integrated and accessible health and social care services in way which reflects the particular conditions and characteristics of rural Wales is a key goal for our rural health plan.
“The many innovative projects announced today will make a real difference to improving the accessibility of health services to rural Wales."
http://wales.gov.uk/newsroom/healthandsocialcare/2010/4427542/?lang=en&s...
Changes to the way social services are delivered in Wales is expected to be recommended in a report due out.
More than 150,000 people use social care and services in Wales every year at a a £1bn annual cost.
Politicians say growing demand and falling real terms budgets means that services will need to be transformed
The report is likely to say social services should integrate working with areas like health, housing and education.
The assembly government asked a commission, headed by Professor Geoffrey Pearson, to examine how social services should be provided over the next decade.
The review has been looking at all aspects of social services - from child care to older people's services.
It will form the basis of a white paper on the future of social services to be published early next year.
The report, titled From Vision to Action, was commissioned by Gwenda Thomas AM, deputy minister for social services.
At the time of announcing the review, Mrs Thomas said: "Social services are a crucial part of Welsh life.
"Day in and day out across Wales high quality services are delivered. This is not to deny, of course, that at times services are not at the standard that are required."
She has warned that she wants to see organisations put aside their own interests to focus on service users as part of what she calls a new consensus.
The report, due out on Tuesday morning, will feed into wider assembly government proposals early next year which will also lay out how services can be funded in the future.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/wales/newsid_9239000/9239692.stm
Wales should create national eligibility criteria for adult care services to end the postcode lottery for service users, a major review has concluded.
The proposal is among a series of recommendations designed to improve consistency and efficiency across authorities by the Independent Commission on Social Services in Wales, chaired by Professor Geoffrey Pearson,
The panel of experts was set up by the Welsh Assembly Government to consider ways of improving the sector over the next decade. Its report, published on Tuesday, is expected to influence a white paper containing a 10-year plan for the social care sector due in January.
The commission recommended national eligibility criteria for services based on assessments which can be transferred between local authorities.
"It is clear that service users and carers want to see a fairer system in Wales with common eligibility criteria," the report said.
The scheme would build on ongoing efforts to introduce maximum charges for home care and day care services in Wales.
Other recommendations, made in the context of the "bleak" outlook for public finances, included:
● Standardised contracts between service providers and local authorities across Wales
● Regional commissioning and delivery of specialist services such as learning disability and adoption
● Pooling of managers across authorities
● Wales-wide entitlements for looked after children and care leavers
● National centres of excellence for research and post-qualifying training for social workers
The regional commissioning models and pooling of resources were recommended after the review found "the present arrangements for the planning, commissioning and delivery of services across the 22 local authorities are not sustainable. These arrangements are too heavy a drain on funding, managerial and change capacity."
The systems in place to support case recording for Wales's 4,500 registered social workers were creating a "bureaucratic burden", the report found, which prevented them from spending time with clients.
The report recommended an urgent review of assessment systems for both adults and children to ensure professionals' time and skills were used more productively.
http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2010/11/30/115915/review-of-adul...
Ministers welcome publication of Commission on Social Services report
The Assembly Government-commissioned report aimed to look at social services over the next decade.
The Independent Commission for Social Services was established in December 2009.
First Minister Carwyn Jones and Deputy Minister for Social Services Gwenda Thomas have received the report from Commission Chairman Professor Geoffrey Pearson.
Gwenda Thomas said:
"I welcome the publication of this thorough report.
"Staff in social services care for some of the most vulnerable people – whether they are young or old - every day and I am determined we value them and continually work to improve services.
"That’s why we as an Assembly Government have protected social services funding through the Local Government settlement. This means funding for social services will increase in cash terms by £35m by 2013-14 – representing a three per cent uplift.
"I want to thank Professor Pearson and his team for their hard work in considering the issues and recommendations. I am particularly pleased that the Commission confirms the case for social services as an integrated service located in, and led by, local government. I believe that this provides the overall context for local government services.
"The recommendations – and the outcome of other reviews I have commissioned into workforce and safeguarding children and vulnerable adults – will inform the development of our Social Services White Paper next year."
First Minister Carwyn Jones added:
"Given the challenging financial climate that we face following the savage cuts imposed on Wales by the UK Government, it is important that public services look to work together to ensure we get more for our money.
"The findings of this report chime with what we are trying to deliver, fostering and developing closer working to sustain and improve local services.
"It is essential that we share resources and make the best use of the skills and expertise of the talented individuals that make up public services in Wales and remove artificial boundaries that can develop between organisations.
"The Education and Local Government Ministers have also commissioned reports looking at how we can better deliver services and consider what services, are best delivered at a national, regional or local level."
http://wales.gov.uk/newsroom/healthandsocialcare/2010/socialservices/?la...
Report can be found at http://www.icssw.org/vision/?lang=en
Proposals to establish a country-wide eligibility threshold in Wales have been heralded as a means of ending the postcode lottery for adult social care.
Charities, care providers and council leaders all backed the idea in last week's report from the Independent Commission on Social Services in Wales. and its accompanying proposal to give service users portable assessments, enabling them to move areas without losing their right to care.
"This will help to reduce the wide variations in current care services across Wales," says Age Cymru's head of policy and public affairs, Graeme Francis. He adds that it would build on decisions already taken by the Welsh government to reduce variations in care charges between councils.
"We've essentially got a postcode lottery of social care and people want above all to know where they stand, what they're entitled to, how much they have to pay for it," says Mario Kleft, honorary chief executive of Care Forum Wales.
He says it is "bureaucratic" and "no longer appropriate" to have separate assessment and eligibility frameworks for each of Wales's 22 local authorities.
Though a final decision on these proposals will come in the Welsh government's social services White Paper early next year, the Welsh Local Government Association has already started looking at how they would work in practice.
The association has long lobbied for the change as a way to iron out differences in the cost, quality and accessibility of care between areas.
Its director of social services and health improvement, Beverlea Frowen, says it was also about "future-proofing" the system for any changes in the way care is funded.
The Commission on the Funding of Care and Support, which reports next July on the future funding of care for England, is likely to have significant implications for Wales, and this is expected to propose a national eligibility and assessment system.
Frowen says a feasibility study into a common assessment framework would start in January, with an initial report due this autumn.
Although Wales is set to be leading the way in ending the postcode lottery, this is not true of personalisation.
The Independent Commission on Social Services found commitment to the principles of personalisation "are not always reflected by real changes in practice", reflecting "limited understanding of what a personalised service looks like".
It called for the Welsh government to give a stronger commitment to the idea and to work with councils and providers to widen access to information, advice and advocacy, to enable users to make an informed choice about their care.
However, contrary to the approach taken in England, where the government wants all users to be on personal budgets by 2013, with most receiving direct payments, the independent commission said personal budgets were not essential, and users could exercise control in other ways.
This sentiment reflects the more collectivist political culture, says Paul Swann, policy officer at Disability Wales.
He says, although disability activists looked on in envy at the rapid roll-out of personal budgets in England, "we realised the importance of incorporating the Welsh traditions of mutuality, co-operative working and community into our thinking".
This means enabling people to have access to traditionally delivered services, commissioned by councils, if this is what they wish.
However, Swann said that, even within this distinctive Welsh context, "massive culture change is needed in local government" to provide users with genuine choice and control, because many councils and social workers remained "ambivalent" about direct payments.
http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2010/12/06/115959/national-eligi...
The £110million will enable more care to be delivered closer to people’s homes, ease demand on hospital treatment and help the NHS as it comes under added winter pressures to deliver key frontline services.
Health Minister Edwina Hart said:
“I am delighted to welcome this funding which comes at a crucial time of year for the health service. The NHS has saved £850million in the past four years, demonstrating it can become more efficient while maintaining high standards of patient care.
“This includes the average length of stay in hospital being reduced, fewer cancelled operations, improved care and support for people with chronic conditions resulting in reduced numbers of emergency hospital admissions, and NHS reforms removing transaction costs from the former market-based system.
“But the needs of patients are demand-led and this funding is a welcome boost to build on the efficiencies in the health service. While we face the biggest financial challenge since the advent of devolution my priority is to protect frontline services in health and social services.”
Mrs Hart welcomed the funding with a visit to an elderly care assessment unit at Barry Community Hospital. The hospital provides community services more locally for patients which helps ease pressures on surgical beds at larger hospitals, helping tackle waiting times.
The funding has been allocated from Welsh Assembly Government from our in year reserves for 2010/11. A further £25million will help pressures in student finances, which has been caused by an increase in the number of student in 2009/10 and 2010/11 in addition to a rise in the number of students eligible for means-tested grants.
http://wales.gov.uk/newsroom/healthandsocialcare/2010/101206pressures/?l...
Independent living inquiry: Welsh government ‘must sign up to independent living’
The Welsh government must join the rest of the UK and draw up its own national strategy for promoting independent living, a parliamentary committee has been told.
The joint committee on human rights was hearing evidence from disabled people’s organisations from Scotland and Wales as it began its inquiry into the implementation of disabled people’s right to independent living.
Rhian Davies, chief executive of Disability Wales, said: “Wales appears to be the only country in the UK that doesn’t have an over-arching strategy on independent living. We feel that is a huge loss for disabled people in Wales.”
She said the “stumbling block” was that the push for independent living in England tended to focus on the “personalisation” of services, which was seen by Welsh politicians as “privatisation by the back door”, with concerns over the dismantling of the welfare state and social services.
Davies said the debate in Wales was “about social care and not about rights” and although there were “pockets of good practice”, resources were not pooled and there was “no over-arching vision, no sense that disabled people have the right to live in their own homes”.
She said: “I hope the message is going back down the M4 that we urgently need to address this issue. What we want from the Welsh government is a right to independent living.”
Pam Duncan, policy officer for Independent Living in Scotland, said there was a “shared approach” to independent living between the disabled people’s movement, local authorities and the Scottish government.
But she said there were “some concerns about the shared understanding”, with “considerable patchy provision”, and doubts over whether this vision was shared by those working at lower levels of government.
She said disabled people had been the “hardest hit” in Scotland by the UK government’s spending cuts and welfare reforms, with the loss of public sector jobs, cuts to benefits and increasing charges for care services.
She said: “There is also a double whammy. We are facing it in our pockets but also facing it in our services.
“It is leaving disabled people very, very cash-strapped. The cumulative impact will be such that disabled people will not enjoy the right to family lives, the right to community living.”
She said there needed to be a national framework of entitlements to independent living, “seeing them as the human rights they are”.
The NHS in Wales has been underfunded compared with the health service in England for the last six years, the Welsh Assembly Government has admitted.
A five-year strategic plan for the health service's future says growth in cash funding has been one-third lower than that for NHS England.
The assembly government said the gap was a legacy of underfunding of Wales as a whole.
The Lib Dems called it "shocking". The Tories blamed ministerial management.
The strategic plan warns that NHS organisations in Wales "enter this more challenging economic period from a less financially secure platform" than England.
Read more http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10621931