In adult social care, we support the County Council’s vision of being an ambitious, innovative and sustainable county, where everyone has the opportunity to prosper, be healthy and happy – including people with adult social care needs. In particular, we support the Council’s priority outcome that everyone in Staffordshire will be healthier and independent for longer, with a priority to encourage good health and wellbeing, resilience and independence. These outcomes and priorities increasingly shape our approach to strength-based working, integration, prevention and community services.
For the residential and nursing care sector, the more successful we are in achieving these outcomes and priorities, the fewer people (as a percentage of the whole population) will enter long term care. However, for those that do, the quality and outcomes in the care home will remain hugely important. The average complexity and extent of care needs of people in care homes will continue to increase over time, and this will continue to have implications for the physical environment, skills within the staff teams, and links with primary, community care and other services. These will all continue to grow in importance over the coming years.
Our strategic objectives for the whole of the Council’s Health and Care Directorate are to:
- Promote good health and independence, and encourage and enable people to take personal responsibility for maintaining their well-being
- Ensure effective and efficient assessment of needs that offers fair access to services
- Maintain a market for care and support that offers services at an affordable price
- Ensure best use of resources, people, data and technology
Specifically for commissioning residential and nursing care, our strategic objectives are:
- Improving the quality-of-care homes in Staffordshire, primarily measured by the proportion of care homes rated by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) as ‘outstanding’ or ‘good’
- Ensuring timely access to care home placements when required, with difference timescales depending on the pathway – ranging from same or next day for Discharge to Assess services commissioned by the NHS, and emergency respite requested by the Council, but with a longer period of time for non-urgent assessments
- Ensuring affordability of care home placements, with the Council aiming to pay a fair price, achieving value for money for the Council taxpayers, and remaining within budget
The NHS Long Term Plan sets a commitment to guarantee NHS support to people living in care homes through the delivery of the Enhancing Health in Care Homes (EHCH) model which will ensure stronger links between primary care networks (PCNs) and their local care homes, with all care homes supported by a consistent team of healthcare professionals, including general practice support. In 2020, Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent committed to roll out the EHCH model and this work will continue in 2024. This model moves away from traditional reactive model to one centred on the needs of individual residents, their families and care home staff.
We will ensure that all individuals living in a care home have good oral health, stay well hydrated and well-nourished and that they are supported by therapists and other professions in rehabilitating when they have been unwell. Care home residents will get regular clinical pharmacist-led medicine reviews when need. Care home staff will have access to NHSmail, enabling them to communicate effectively and securely with NHS teams involved in the care of their residents.
The NHS ambition is to strengthen support for people who live and work in and around care homes. People living in care homes should expect the same level of support as if they were living in their own homes. This is achieved through collaborative working between health, social care, voluntary, community, social enterprise sector and care home partners.