Welcome
In this issue we bring you details of the Total Place approach to providing public services, and how it affects adult social care.
More than ever councils are seeking to find creative solutions to meet the challenge of ensuring satisfaction with local services, while at the same time fulfilling government demands for efficiency savings.
Total Place was a high profile attempt at addressing this issue. The aim was to look at spending as a whole, across organisations, to identify where money is spent unnecessarily due to duplication and bureaucracy, and to maximise the impact by sharing funds and resources.
The approach was tested in a year-long pilot study involving 13 areas - three localities in the West Midlands, namely Birmingham, Worcestershire and a sub-region of Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire. Results show great potential for local authorities to reduce costs and improve outcomes for local people. Their focus ranged from intensive family intervention to gang crime, from frequent hospital users to high need neighbourhoods.
Recently the coalition government announced its plans for taking Total Place forward by setting up new Community Budgets: the first set will go live in April next year.
The idea is for councils and their partners to put various strands of funding into one pot from which money will be allocated to spend on priorities mutually agreed by the organisations involved.
As with Total Place, Community Budgets will operate on the premise of breaking down barriers that prevent collaborative working across and between organisations, as well as improving results for local people while reducing costs.
Greater emphasis is placed on making services more people centred – something we are familiar with in adult social care.
Community Budgets, along with moves to transfer responsibility for public health back to local authorities as outlined in the government’s Public Health White Paper, mean social care and the health services will be increasingly required to adopt a joined up approach to providing services.
Andy Hancox
Director
Improvement and Efficiency
West Midlands
Wednesday, 8 December 2010
How assistive technologies can deliver efficient social care and health
Hosted by Improvement and Efficiency West Midlands, this one day event is by invitation only and sees the launch of the West Midlands assistive technology information website.
It takes place on 4 March 2011, in The Studio, Cannon Street, Birmingham.
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It takes place on 4 March 2011, in The Studio, Cannon Street, Birmingham.
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Virtual demonstration of assistive technology
National charity, Home Farm Trust, has launched an online virtual smart house to demonstrate how technology and gadgets can be used to help vulnerable people stay independent and safe in their homes.
The site features a range of gadgets for use around the home, such as fingerprint door locks, bogus caller panic alarms, voice prompts to remind people of things to do, and environmental controls to switch on and off TVs and lights.
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The site features a range of gadgets for use around the home, such as fingerprint door locks, bogus caller panic alarms, voice prompts to remind people of things to do, and environmental controls to switch on and off TVs and lights.
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The public service challenge: implementing the lessons from Total Place
As the public sector implements the next stage of Total Place, this joint publication highlights the lessons from the pilot studies.
Produced by the Local Government Group and the 'Municipal Journal', it serves to collate all the views of the Total Place participants in one source document.
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Produced by the Local Government Group and the 'Municipal Journal', it serves to collate all the views of the Total Place participants in one source document.
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Total Place on line
Information about the latest developments in Total Place can be found on a dedicated website.
The site shares learning from the thirteen pilot sites and offers a guide to practitioners.
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The site shares learning from the thirteen pilot sites and offers a guide to practitioners.
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Facing the future with telehealth
Healthcare Without Walls: A framework for delivering telehealth at scale, is a report produced by think tank 2020health, to inform future NHS strategy for telehealth.
It looks at the rapidly developing problems for the NHS in treating people with long term conditions, and how this can be improved by using telehealth technology.
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It looks at the rapidly developing problems for the NHS in treating people with long term conditions, and how this can be improved by using telehealth technology.
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Help available with JSNAs
The Local Government Improvement and Development (LGID) webpage hosting national Joint Strategic Needs Assessments (JSNAs) resources is now live.
JSNAs are a statutory requirement. Local authorities and primary care trusts are expected to work together to identify current and future health and wellbeing needs of local populations through the JSNA process, leading to agreed commissioning priorities that improve outcomes and reduce health inequalities.
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JSNAs are a statutory requirement. Local authorities and primary care trusts are expected to work together to identify current and future health and wellbeing needs of local populations through the JSNA process, leading to agreed commissioning priorities that improve outcomes and reduce health inequalities.
Read more
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