Find out more about the progress of our ASC improvements for 2024/24.
Adult social care plays a vital role in supporting people to lead independent lives, and this year we began our work to transform and improve what we do and continue to meet our community’s needs. We have worked with our people, partners and the people who use our services to understand which areas are working well, what we need to improve and have identified areas where we can grow our services.
Our collaboration with stakeholders from different organisations was instrumental in gathering diverse perspectives and fostering alignment through structured discussions and feedback sessions. We ensured that the insights gathered were representative of adult social care. As an integrated care system, we value and respect our partners in the voluntary sector, who provide an important link between the council, the NHS and the people who we care for, and their families. We want to strengthen our relationship further and work even more closely. We will continue to focus our efforts on areas where demand for adult social care is high, to strengthen community services and the effectiveness of our reablement offers through transformation.
Our work has also highlighted our need to improve our offer to working age adults which became a key piece of work in 2023/4 resulting in the The Big Plan for people with learning disabilities.
Many of the adults who use our social care services have increasingly complex needs and health conditions. This means it’s more important than ever to provide a consistent, high-quality service.
Developing robust contract management standards became a top priority for us and aligned with the Local Government Association Review which included 13 recommendations.
These include the need to:
These standards are essential for maintaining high-quality provision of care, as they set clear expectations and benchmarks that hold providers accountable. This accountability ensures that providers meet required quality and safety criteria, protecting vulnerable individuals and ensuring compliance with legal and regulatory requirements.
Monitoring these contracts means we can check that resources are spent efficiently. It also means we can support our workforce by making sure they get the training and development where and when they need it. This is important for job satisfaction and retention.
We have undertaken a diagnostic review of our services to identify any possible improvements. We explored how we will build on our strength to design and deliver high quality, person-centred adult social care services that promote independence, are cost effective and are resilient to future changes and disruption.
We have faced increasing demand, cost pressures and major changes to national policy. To continue to deliver high-quality, person-centred services, we need to change how we work. We began the review against the backdrop of COVID-19 which created sustained underlying demand and cost pressure throughout the system. We are seeing an increasing number of contacts and level of need, placing pressure on our workforce. Torbay is also working more with partners to better connect and optimise provision.
We needed to identify what was essential to improve, and how to deliver those changes successfully, creating a set of prioritised opportunities for changes and a clear plan to improve outcomes for people, staff, and our finances. The review helped us understand that there were three core areas:
We are committed to personalising hospital discharge pathways to ensure the best possible experience for the people who draw on service provision. By assessing people’s needs, planning, and delivering care in the right place, at the right time, with the right people, we aim to maximise independence for everyone in our care. We continue to work to ensure our pathways and services deliver the highest quality results, and we routinely review new care plans and packages after six weeks to ensure their effectiveness. Reablement will be an integral part of our community urgent care, rapid response, and prevention services. We will provide our adult social care front door staff with the time, tools, and resources needed to meet people’s needs from the first time we meet them, and make sure they and their family are kept informed about any changes to their care.
We ensure that job roles are the same wherever people work, and that our people have the guidance they need to refer people to the most appropriate teams across the NHS and council.
We are working with social care staff to further embed strengths-based practice and personalised support as the bedrock of integrated care in Torbay. Processes are being developed that will ensure time efficiency is gained while colleagues capture necessary data and other information. We are also developing an education package supplemented reflective supervision to ensure the necessary skills and knowledge remain evident in conversations with people who require social care support.
Multi-disciplinary peer groups provide expert support and advice for the most complex and exceptional cases. Our people are trusted to use their judgement and encouraged to be resourceful and creative, and utilise the tools, processes and systems that guide and support the accurate assessment of and recording of needs.
We want to make it easier for people and carers to use direct payments and arrange their own care and support. We’ll also look at extending supported living and extra care housing provision as a more personalised alternative to residential care. Alongside this, we’ll explore increasing the range of personalised care and support options for people to access in their community and increase the choice of more personalised options to meet personal care needs at home. We will look at new technologies – such as self-care apps, which have the potential to transform the way people manage and control their own healthcare.
We have also focused on building the next phase of transformation with our delivery partner Channel 3 to show the next steps for our transformation plan .
A key area for development within the ASCiP has been our need to improve contract and market management to mitigating risks, enhance relationships with care providers, and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements – good contract management supports safe care for our community.
We have undertaken targeted efforts to streamline and strengthen our contract management processes, including creating a centralised register for all contracts serving as a single source of truth, giving our people easy access to contract documents and relevant information.
We have developed standardised templates to streamline the contract creation process and reduce the risk of errors or omissions. We have improved the way we report to provide greater visibility of our contract performance, obligations, and key metrics. Improved reporting enables stakeholders to track the progress of contracts, monitor key milestones, and continue to work to identify areas for improvement. Our improved contract management processes have enabled us to strengthen relationships through clearer communication and engagement, and we will continue to work together and be transparent about what we do to provide high quality care.