Adult social care
Two thirds of care homes untested for COVID-19
Just 15% of workers in care homes have been tested for coronavirus during the pandemic, according to new data.
Care home on the brink of collapse
Care homes in the North East have issued a legal warning to North Tyneside council, claiming they could collapse within days without further funding.
Reinventing recruitment for a more sustainable future
Local government has shown it can move faster and better when the bureaucracy is stripped away and decision-making is made at the local level. Manny Sandhu sets out a social care and related professions recruitment plan with a powerful purpose.
Critical tool against COVID-19
Steven Pleasant explains how a new ‘local, real-time’ framework lets 10 councils share information on care home pressures in Greater Manchester, ‘allowing us to get mutual help to them’.
Planning your way effectively through COVID-19
Brighton & Hove City Council’s adult social care team has created a new interim assessment and support planning framework in response to COVID-19, in partnership with Peopletoo. Richard Cattell and Kirsty Jordan explain.
Finding the right mindset - and team
Jim McManus shares his lessons for dealing with pandemics - and presents a ‘go to guide’ on the six key elements of his COVID-19 multi-agency response.
Index reveals places most at risk during pandemic
The West Midlands is the new immediate battleground against COVID-19, according to a risk rating index highlighting the local authority areas facing the highest threat to life.
Council-led project helps free up much-needed hospital beds
An East Suffolk Council-led multi-agency partnership pilot is providing crucial support during the pandemic in getting people discharged from hospital to their homes or to ‘halfway home hubs’, as Cllr Richard Kerry explains.
Money matters to the extent that it supports life and wellbeing
Gary Fielding says we will all have to pay for the economic consequences of COVID-19, but perhaps more of us will be prepared to accept investing more in communities and social care.
COVID-19: Hertfordshire’s support for care sector provides confidence for the future
Iain MacBeath explains how Hertfordshire CC has stepped in to offer certainty and support to the care sector during COVID-19 – ‘doing the right thing by our care workers’.
Care providers experience tenfold hike in costs of protective equipment
Suppliers of protective equipment are charging as much as 10 times the normal amount for their products as supplies grow scare, care companies have told the BBC.
Keeping care going in a pandemic
We must use the adult social care sector’s 'magnificent' response to the coronavirus pandemic as categorical evidence as to how our future should be modelled and funded, says Dr Carol Tozer.
Technology should be used as part of a wider response to COVID-19
David Rees says that although technology is in no way a complete solution in social care in response to COVID-19, it can be used in a number of areas to free up scarce human resource.
Local government needs to ‘hold the ring’ on pooled public services’ budgets
Shadow minister for local government Jim McMahon tells Heather Jameson it was irresponsible that the Budget did not mention adult social care – and he says we need an ‘honest assessment’ of councils’ and public services’ funding needs.
Care technology is improving the lives of people in supported living
Harminder Sangha and Sean Hunt of PA Consulting say society is already taking great strides to use personalised digital technologies – and people in supported living deserve to have the same level of access, and the opportunities it provides.
Our social care achievements can't be pinned to one single component
Andrew Loades outlines the key factors underpinning Redbridge LBC’s high productivity rating and satisfaction scores for adult social care.
Budget 2020: If this is a national crisis it's one many of us felt was already underway
Local agendas should prevail, according to chair of SIGOMA Sir Stephen Houghton – but he says the headline capital aspirations in the Budget seem to harbour real ambition beyond already thriving areas.
Leaving nothing to chance
The ‘levelling-up’ Budget is era-defining and ambitious in scope – but we will have to wait until the summer Spending Review to understand the blueprint, says Localis’s Jonathan Werran.
Councils are survivors
Claire Kober says that while the year ahead promises its up and downs, The MJ's columnists are united on the resilience of the sector and its ability to withstand whatever is thrown at it.
Care crisis’ answers are already out there
There have been enough reports on the future funding of social care to fill a Whitehall filing cabinet, most of which have ended up in the one marked ‘too difficult', says Michael Burton.
