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Brighton and Hove City Council is at the forefront of latest developments in social care, as Ken Norman reveals. Adult social care has reached a critical point. National reform is long overdue, as councils shoulder what has been an ever-increasing cost to ensure that rising numbers of our over 65s are afforded good care. In the meantime, at Brighton and Hove City Council we have been innovating our adult care services. In fact, this June we presented our redesigned social care access point to delegates from across Europe at the 17th European Social Services Conference in Prague in June. The workshop was attended by more than 40 social care professionals from France, Scandinavia, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands. Delegates who attended our workshop were impressed with the council's model, because it met many of the challenges across Europe in trying to meet increased demand through modernised services. It was gratifying to receive such interest on a Europe-wide platform. We know our model works successfully, and we have attracted a lot of interest in the UK. But this has enabled us to showcase to a much wider audience. It demonstrates how the UK is at the forefront of developments in social care. But what exactly have we done? The council has stripped away its former multi-entry system for accessing care, which was inefficient, overly bureaucratic, and confusing. It has replaced it with a single team, with an added new information and advice service – designed and implemented within six months – which went live in May 2008. It is designed to handle the 49,000 contacts which we receive each year. In line with the ‘personalisation' agenda for social care, and the ‘Putting people first' concordat in December 2007, our adult social care service has a comprehensive change programme for redesigning all of its services and systems. This combines a proportionate approach to assessing need and delivering care services, as well as enabling people to determine their own needs and support ‘packages', whether funded through community care or other council and community services. The Access Point is the ‘front door' to social care-funded services, but can also signpost callers to other sources of help and advice. This approach is particularly useful since, often, callers are unclear about their problems and who is best placed to help. The Access Point can call on an extensive reference directory to help problem-solve and keep people out of the care system, by helping them to access alternatives which are often more appropriate. The service is contactable via phone, e-mail, the council website, and minicom, but face-to-face interviews can also be arranged. The main route is the phone, and the average time taken over the phone is 20 minutes to complete an assessment and arrange services. The team is staffed by two types of information and access officers. They have been recruited from a variety of backgrounds from social care, other local authority services and the private sector, and received specialist training to equip them to respond effectively and safely. This has produced a multi-skilled team with a broad range of knowledge, which continues to be enthusiastic and committed, and reports a high level of job satisfaction. Services arranged by the new Access Point are: * home care up to a value of £75 a week * daily living equipment and minor adaptations * community meal services * personal alarm service and Telecare * sensory equipment and repairs * information and advice on a wide range of council and community services * signposting and help to access other services. There have been exceptionally good results from the system's first year, which were evident from the first month of operation. A new phone system ensures quicker response and monitors performance, and ‘dropped' calls have been greatly reduced. Ninety per cent of contacts at Access Point are resolved without needing further input, and the team handles 47% per cent of all social care assessments. There are quick solutions for simple requests and needs. Customers are experiencing good levels of service and outcomes, express high levels of satisfaction, and good feedback is reported from other agencies. There has also been a positive knock-on impact through the rest of the system, with 27% less complex assessments for older people being needed, thereby also reducing the waiting time for non-urgent cases. Our new personalised service is achieving excellent results. Waiting times have been reduced, more staff are happy and, most importantly, our clients enjoy dignity and respect. Cllr Ken Norman is cabinet member for adult social care and health at Brighton and Hove City Council.

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Access to better social care

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