Agenda and minutes

To receive any declarations of interest.

There were no declarations of interest received at this point in the meeting.

The minutes of the Adult Social Care and Services Scrutiny Panel meeting held on 10 March 2021 were submitted and approved as a correct record.

The Director of Adult Social Care and Health Integration will be in attendance to provide an overview of the challenges the service has faced in 2021.

The Chair welcomed the Director of Adult Social Care and Health Integration to the meeting to provide a verbal presentation on the challenges the service has faced over the 12 months.

The Director stated that summarising this year was probably the hardest and had become a defining year in people's careers. Whilst restriction were being eased, the Director advised that we are not out of pandemic and must be mindful of this, due to other variates internationally. The vaccination programme was well underway by the NHS, however whether individuals required boosters was unknown and not all people can have vaccines/ boosters depending on their health needs.

Local authorities need to balance their responsibilities of care and business , and whist the Director acknowledges the corporate activity his interest is with the statutory adult social care.

The Director outlined that he became aware of the first local covid case in Stockton on 10 March 2020, however Covid had been on the Directors radar since Christmas on 2019, and we must learn from this year and look at how we might plan for the future, in case we are ever faced with a virus of this degree.

Year this has been unprecedented and our staff group, across the whole of the Council has been immense, and have shown real courage and supporting our residents of Middlesbrough.

Speaking within Adult Social Care, the Director outlined that financial necessity has meant the service has levelled back their structure over the years and as such there was not a huge amount of resilience built into our structure. However, when new things have come along we have had to reply on our staff being flexible in their working arrangements. Staff have shown personal  courage, as due to uncertainly of fatality at the start of the pandemic, and due to our roles e.g. continuing to work with vulnerable patients. Thankfully we have no lost any staff members to covid, but some have been quite unwell and staff and just carried on in their duties.

The Director began to discuss the areas which have been mostly affected, however outlined that he would by no means intentionally miss a service area, but the impact of Covid has been extensive and explaining all of the impacts would be impossible.

Care homes

The Director outlined that the Council operate and own one residential care unit and the rest are contracted to a Private Provider. He commended the care homes for their approach as sadly there have been a number of deaths within the care homes. There has however been no necessary correlation this year between deaths and poor practice.  The Director stated that a number of the care homes stepped up and openly agreed to work with patients who has/had covid 19, taking into consideration the guidance on infection control measures. Care homes have worked really hard over the past 12 months and have been inspiring. Care managers have had to make choices and take into account a balance of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 20/52

The Chair provided a verbal update following the Overview and Scrutiny Board on 8 April 2021.

AGREED- That the update be noted.

No items.