Sitra: Purpose, Activity and Landscape

Presentation to the London Care and Support Forum

25th November 2014

Overview

• Who we are• What we do• Landscape, especially Care Act 2014• Challenges & Opportunities• Questions and discussion

Who we areMembership based organisation for housing with care and support sector with increasing focus on making connections to health and social care

Founded as a charity in 1984, we work to:

•promote positive outcomes for people using services, providers & funders•provide leadership for the sector•encourage a healthy, diverse and sustainable sector•influence policy•support quality and professionalism•share best practice and uphold co-production

Who we are

Sitra does this through its work within policy, training, consultancy, information, and capacity building.

•Vic Rayner, Chief Executive.•Main office and core staff in London & Birmingham•Directing a network of over 50 Sitra Associates with a national reach and broad scope of expertise

Who we are

Over 400 members across England, from the very large to very small.

Membership benefits– information & advice– regular publications with the latest sector news– discounts on training & consultancy tailored to your needs– regular policy briefings & updates– networking events– annual national conference – June 2015

What we do

• Policy and representation• Training and consultancy • Special Projects, including EU work• Research, data collection and analysis• Workforce development and capacity building• Promote quality and best practice

Co-production and partnerships threaded throughout

What we do

Policy and representation:consultation and engagement - with policy makers as

representative of the housing with support sector e.g.

• Department of Work & Pensions on impact of welfare benefit reforms,

• Department of Health on development of the Care Act and Guidance

• Department of Communities & Local Government on housing engagement with Clinical Commissioning Groups

• Ongoing guardianship of Supporting People Quality Assessment Framework

What we do

Partnerships and Alliances including:• Housing Learning and Improvement Network• Skills for Care• Think Local Act Personal Partnership (TLAP)• TPAS – The Tenant Empowerment Organisation• Asset Skills / Building Futures Group• Association of Dementia Studies, University of Worcester• Alzheimer’s Society• Surrey Care Association

What we do

Beyond our shores:• Lead partner on the creation of European Core

Learning Outcomes for Integration of Support and Housing (ELOSH)

• European project that addresses a need for Continuing Vocational Education & Training on the integration of support and housing for people with support needs

• Sitra leading on co-production element

Training

Our Prospectus:Wide Scope:- • Care group specific for front line workers, e.g. alcohol abuse in

older people, learning disability awareness• Skills & competencies (individual & organisation),

e.g. assertiveness, contract compliance• Management & leadership,

e.g. supervision skills, managing & recruiting volunteers• Belt and braces, e.g. first aid, fire safety

Training

Our Prospectus:Flexible delivery:-• Public courses (open to all) • Bespoke in-house courses tailored to your needs

(and we come to you)• Consultancy support (for you)• Tailored capacity development combining consultancy

with in-house training• Support and training to engage with the newly integrating

world of health and adult social care

Projects Some recent examples of our commissioned work include: • East Sussex and Cumbria Personalisation Projects: working

with supported housing providers and service users to embed personalisation how services are delivered

• TLAP Personal Budgets: workshops & report on ‘reducing process and increasing uptake of personal budgets’ and case studies for report on personal budgets for older people

• Dementia Leaders: training and development for leaders and operational managers in the housing sector in partnership with Association of Dementia Studies, University of Worcester & Housing Learning & Improvement Network

Projects

• Dementia Challenge - Intergenerational schools project: part of the Prime Minister’s Dementia Challenge to increase awareness of dementia in schools

• Pulling Together Training on Welfare Benefits: created with homeless people and front line staff, and co-delivered with them, this coproduced training back was created from the start with the people it was for. www.pullingtogether.org.uk

• New & Emerging Job Roles in adult social care within the extra care housing sector: Commissioned by Skills for Care to identify workforce challenges of changing job roles in extra care

Extra Care ProjectKey FindingsThe skills and knowledge needed for ‘cross

over’ roles are wide and diverse –

providers acknowledged a need for guided

support to identify the appropriate skills

and knowledge to match these roles.

Guidance is needed for employers to be able to use learning that is currently available to meet the needs of this workforce– there is a need to map current and future workforce needs to current learning provision and explore new technologies to enhance training and development.

Promotion of careers in the sector needs to be undertaken, as well as improvement with recruitment and retention by employers – staff recruitment into ‘cross over’ roles should be considered as part of the wider recruitment ‘challenge’ that social care experiences. Once recruited, employers face a challenge in retaining their employees.

The sector does not utilise Health and Social Care

apprenticeships in a comprehensive way – there is work

to be done to understand how this situation could be

improved.

The sector are not fully aware of the impact of policy

changes – the extra care housing sector needs

information and advice on where policy changes such as

the

Care Act (2014) impacts their sector.

The LandscapeCare Act 2014What it does...• Makes wellbeing an organising principle which local authorities must

promote when carrying out any of their care and support functions• Replaces and consolidates mishmash of legislation since 1948 National

Assistance Act• Gives legal effect to recent policies such as personalisation,

prevention, integration and safeguarding:– legal right to a personal budget– new prevention duty on councils– universal and targeted information and advice – developing integration and duty of cooperation– safeguarding boards on a statutory footing– requirement to ensure market diversity

Landscape

Care Act 2014 cont’d

• Introduces reforms aimed at greater fairness and consistency:- national eligibility criteria- parity between user and carers- provisions on continuity of care (for people who move)- cap on contributions - universal system of deferred payments- extended means test

Challenges and OpportunitiesMaking do with less money• Ongoing financial challenge with reduced funding for

councils with some mitigation through the Better Care Fund • Opportunity: new ways of doing things to mitigate demand?

• Developing a fit for purpose workforce (broadly defined) • Delivery of the spirit and letter of the Act has major

implications for the workforce - both regulated and un-regulated

• Opportunity: a provider workforce that could do more if asked?

Challenges and Opportunities

Achieving person-centred quality• Care and support that delivers quality to meet individual outcomes

requiring changes to commissioning, procurement and contracting with good regulation underpinning (where it applies)

• Opportunity: to shift away from time and task?

Integrating support around the person• Personalisation reaching health e.g. Personal Health Budgets,

Integration Pioneers and now Integrated Personalised Commissioning

• Continued pressure on primary care and acute sector

• Opportunity: to be part of re-designed care pathways?

Challenges and Opportunities

Local authority implementation challenges• More things to do for more people with less people• Requirement to facilitate a “vibrant, responsive market

of service providers”• Care Act gives local authorities power to delegate

functions • Opportunity: to pro-actively engage with market

shaping and look at what else providers might do e.g. delegated assessments, information & advice?

Ending

• Thank you for listening

• Any questions?

• A quick discussion

For Discussion

Based on what you know and what you have heard today so far:•What are the most important challenges you face?-Workforce-Delivery-Business development•What would most help you address these challenges?

Contact Sitra• policy, representation,

membership• advice, information,

publications• consultancy: service

development, tendering• training: public

programme and in-house • conferences, seminars,

events management

Sitra 3rd Floor, 55 Bondway, London SW8 1SJ

Phone: 020 7793 4710

Email: post@sitra.org

Website: www.sitra.org

Sitra CEO’s blog: http://sitraceo.wordpress.com/

http://twitter.com/sitrapolicyhttp://twitter.com/sitratraining