Care Services Minister Paul Burstow will tomorrow (14 April) send out a strong message to councils aimed at encouraging joint working across health and social care and making personalised care a reality.
Ahead of his speech at the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services’ (ADASS) Spring Seminar in Newcastle, Mr Burstow today revealed the six sites which have been selected to pilot Social Work Practices for adult social care.
The Social Work Practice pilots will see groups of frontline social care workers given more flexiblity to work with the people they support and their carers to improve their outcomes.
In addition to this, the Minister has today announced plans to strengthen the legislation on direct payments to ensure councils make clear to every person entitled to care and support how they can make use of a direct payment.
New Directions to councils, to be consulted on shortly, will mean all councils must ensure there is a full and open discussion about direct payments. This builds on best practice that is common in some councils already.
Care Services Minister, Paul Burstow, said:
"The Coalition is determined to give people more control over their care and support.
"Our plans will free up front line social workers to do what they do best: help people maintain their independence. This shift in power will give people greater control over their care and support."
The Social Work Practice pilots are organisations that are led by social workers but independent of local authorities. They will provide the social work services for specific groups of adults in their community and their carers.
The scheme, backed by more than £1 million of Department of Health funding, will reduce bureaucracy, allowing social workers to do their jobs effectively and freeing them to spend more time with those in their care. It offers the potential to improve the lives of those receiving support by offering them more stability and continuity and will also enable social care workers to:
- Take decisions closer to those in their care, leading to a more responsive service.
- Feel empowered with more control over the day to day management of the practice.
- Enjoy their jobs more – staff satisfaction levels in the children’s Social Work Practice pilots have been high as staff feel empowered and part of the decision-making team.
- Build stronger links across communities and improve integration between health and social care.
The projects are focused on different user groups including adults with physical disabilities, older people with mental health problems and deaf and visually impaired people.
The Social Care Institute for Excellence will oversee the project on behalf of the Department of Health.
Stephen Goulder, the Social Care Institute for Excellence’s Workforce Director, said:
“The Social Care Institute for Excellence encourages innovation in social care and we are very pleased to be project managing these pilots.
“We look forward to adding to the evidence base about the role of social workers by sharing the findings with the sector. We are particularly pleased that the sites cover such a diverse range of people, services and settings.”
A successful scheme of pilots for children’s services has already seen children in care getting better help.
Subject to Parliamentary approval of secondary legislation, the adult pilots are expected to start in the summer and run for two years.
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Notes to editors
1. For further information, please contact the Department of Health press office on 020 7210 5221.
2. Applications for pilot Social Work Practices opened in November 2010. The six successful sites and the client groups they will work with are given below.
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Birmingham City Council
Full range of social work tasks for people with physical disabilities and long term conditions. -
London Borough of Lambeth
All adults: either funding their own care or having needs below the FACS threshold. -
North East Lincolnshire Care Plus Trust
Older people, including those with mental health problems. Adults with physical, sensory or learning disabilities. -
Shropshire Council
Older people, people with physical disabilities and learning disabilities. -
Suffolk County Council
Adults who are deaf, visually impaired or who have dual sensory loss. -
Surrey County Council
Individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing
3. The Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) is an independent charity that works across the UK to improve care services by sharing knowledge about what works. SCIE:
- captures, analyses and disseminates innovative approaches to new challenges
- translates research into practical guides and learning materials
- improves the knowledge and skills of frontline social care and social work staff, managers, commissioners and trainers
- covers adults', families' and children's care services
Find out more at www.scie.org.uk
http://nds.coi.gov.uk/content/detail.aspx?NewsAreaId=2&ReleaseID=419164&...
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Changes made to NHS Constitution to enshrine whistleblowing law
Doctors, nurses and other NHS workers who blow the whistle will be protected in the future, under changes to the NHS Constitution announced by Health Secretary Andrew Lansley today.
The changes will also make it clear that it is the duty of all NHS workers to report bad practice or any mistreatment of patients receiving care from the health service.
The changes will be enshrined in the NHS Constitution and associated guidelines as soon as possible to encourage more staff to come forward with concerns. This follows the poor care exposed by the Care Quality Commission last week after unannounced inspections of 100 NHS hospitals.
Changes to the constitution, to be made in early 2012, will add:
• an expectation that staff should raise concerns at the earliest opportunity;
• a pledge that NHS organisations should support staff when raising concerns by ensuring their concerns are fully investigated and that there is someone independent, outside of their team, to speak to; and
• clarity around the existing legal right for staff to raise concerns about safety, malpractice or other wrong doing without suffering any detriment.
The changes, which are part of a series of measures intended to promote whistleblowing, follow a public consultation earlier this year in which there was an overwhelmingly positive response to amend the NHS Constitution in this way.
Andrew Lansley said:
“The first lines of defence against bad practice are the doctors and nurses doing their best to care for patients. They need to know that they have a responsibility to their patients to raise concerns if they see risks to patient safety. And when they do, they should be reassured that the Government stands full square behind them.
“We are determined to root out the problems in the NHS. That is why I requested a series of unannounced hospital inspections by the Care Quality Commission. Its latest reports showed there are long standing problems and we now want to do all we can to tackle them.”
Notes to editors
1. For a copy of the consultation report go to http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Consultations/Responsestoconsultations/DH_130551
2. On 9 June 2010, the Secretary of State made an announcement to the House of Commons, with regard to taking forward a full inquiry into the failings at Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. Within this announcement he committed to undertake further work on whistleblowing, outlining five key areas for improvement, one of which was to ‘Reinforce the NHS constitution to make clear the rights and responsibilities of NHS staff and their employers in respect of whistleblowing’.
3. The NHS Constitution codifies NHS principles and values and the rights and responsibilities of patients and staff. It specifically draws attention to the protection available to staff, and the handbook to the constitution specifically cites the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (PIDA) and available staff rights ‘to protection from detriment in employment and the right not to be unfairly dismissed’. The proposed amendments to the Constitution as set out in the consultation document would emphasise those rights and responsibilities.
4. The Department conducted a full public consultation between 12 October 2010 and 11 January 2011 – 103 responses were received.
http://nds.coi.gov.uk/content/detail.aspx?NewsAreaId=2&ReleaseID=421644&...