To receive any apologies for absence.

Apologies for absence were received by Cllr Hassler.  

To receive any declarations of interest.

There were no declarations of interest received. 

To consider the minutes of the meetings hels on 2^nd November 2021 and 30^th November 2021.

Resolved unanimously:  that the minutes of the meeting on 2^nd November 2021 were approved.

To consider the report.

The Committee considered the report regarding progress being made against the Transformation Strategy and setting the scene for the other agenda items.

The Chief Executive informed members that the purpose of this report was to provide the context, within the Transformation Strategy, for the presentations at items 2 and 3 of the agenda and the update on progress against the Delivery Plan at item 4. The Strategy was approved in September 2020 and the subsequent Delivery Plan, agreed in November 2021, details the specific activities being delivered through to April 2023.

Transformation was at the heart of the Corporate Plan and in creating a borough of opportunity and innovation, focuses on building capacity and resilience within communities alongside better and more creative use of technology.  This was not work just at the centre of the organisation but for everyone with support and training available for officers to take forward within their service areas and share with others. In line with our values, we were developing an organisation that was empowering all staff to be leaders and transform how they deliver their roles.

Alongside, and supporting, community transformation was a focus on better and

more creative use of technology.  The Royal Borough had a growing opportunity to make better use of advancing technologies in the way it delivers key services such as the social care case management, the use of low-code software to develop community facing applications, automation of processes using tools like Robotic Process Automation and expanding the use of technology enabled care in social care.

The Chairman asked if lessons learnt during the pandemic had been incorporated into transformation and was informed that although we were still in the pandemic there had been lessons such as the community coming together.  Hybrid working had been a success helping providing services in different ways as well as remembering the need for human contact being available. 

The Director of Children’s Services informed that there had been lessons leant in sharing of information.  There was the ability to collect and share information on line but it had been noticed that it was just a reproduction of old paper forms.  They had looked at better ways of sharing the information with better quality and in the right place.

Resolved unanimously:  that the Cabinet Transformation Sub-Committee notes the report and notes the progress made in relation to the Transformation Delivery Plan 2021-2023.

To consider the presentation.

The Sub-Committee considered the presentation on the progress of welling circles. 

The Transformation and Community Service Lead informed that partners included in the project were Frimley Health, Royal Borough, Maidenhead Magpies and the wider voluntary sector.  So far there had been 53 referrals and 37 plans created and uploaded onto shared records.  There was a stakeholder delivery group meets every four weeks and a range of WBC videos to be released as part of the ongoing recruitment of volunteers.  There was also a monthly newsletter sent to volunteers.

A new learning and development training programme had been developed for the considering personalisation budgets.  Bristol University had been commissioned to carry out fist year evaluation review.

There had been a new tier system produced using Lyon 2, this was:

Tier 0 – Email links only – no intervention

Tier 1 – Social Prescribing Support

Tier 2 – Eligible for the WBC

Tier 3 – Housebound referrals – befriending only

Tier 4 – Dementia diagnosis or other high needs – sign posted to relevant support groups.

Members were provided with cost analysis of the project and its benefits.  The figures indicated the number of older people budgeted for vs the number of older people entering Adult Social Care by the end of March 2022.  Although Adult Social Care does not only reflect older people, we know that the majority of entries being referred by Adult Social Care into the Wellbeing Circles Programme are older people who are isolated and lonely.

A number of case studies were presented to Members illustrating the benefits that had been achieved. 

Moving forward the key priorities for the next 12 months were to manage the WBC support for referred individuals, within the resource currently available to support a minimum 40 individuals during the year.

Maintain and grow the team of WBC volunteers to provide support to individuals including implementing appropriate volunteer recruitment, safeguarding checks and training approaches.

Develop the “suite” of WBC volunteer training materials which can be shared with partner community organisations including a revamped, tailored Stop, Look, Care training video.

Develop an alliance of “Wellbeing Partner” organisations from the voluntary and community sector engaged with and supporting the WBC community support model and promoting WBC volunteering opportunities and training.

Promote WBC’s as a community resource available to support vulnerable local people and to promote WBC volunteering opportunities and to capture and share learning from individual support interventions, including the production case studies.

Cllr Hilton said that this had been driven by the pandemic and asked how were residents referred to it and what safeguards were in place.  He was informed that referrals were made by their GP’s, hospitals or social care and we used the Lyon system.  All volunteers are DBS checked and trained prior to any contact being made. 

Cllr Johnson said that this was excellent work and mentioned that there was a target of at least 40 individuals per year and asked if there was a maximum.  He was informed that the year  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

To consider the presentation.

Members considered the presentation on the updated use of the Lyon system.

Members were informed that the purpose of the system was to use the low-code software to build collaborative platforms and a smartphone app that social care, primary care, and local volunteers could use to support vulnerable individuals in the community.

The Council had received £250k during the pandemic to help support the clinically vulnerable.  Some of this had been used to develop the Lyon system and expand it into the wider community.  Building the system really assisted with support to the vulnerable member of society.  The application allowed primary care and local volunteers to offer support and also demonstrated that during the pandemic there was a huge community willingness to help those in need.  Members were shown a number of slides taking them through how the system helped a fictional individual. 

When someone accessed the system the data would be used to see if low level support was required or if other tiers would be more appropriate, the well being circle might need that a referral to social or health care was required. There were appropriate warning throughout the process to signpost to more appropriate care or emergency care when required.  The data collected from the system helped provided the appropriate level of care from volunteer support to intervention.

Other examples were given how the system could be used by volunteers and professionals such as identifying an individual who needed medication delivered but there were no notes on the system so it allowed officers to contact them, identify their needs and allocate to the appropriate level of support to meet their needs, in this instance a volunteer to deliver their medication.  The system was also used to confirm that allocated tasks had been completed and if there was anything else to report back.

Members were also updated on another system they had been working on called MySense.

The purpose of MySense was to use a set of sensors placed in a persons home to sensitively monitor wellbeing trends. An approved network of family, friends and trusted individuals, responders, that received updates via a mobile app to aide pre-emptive decision-making.

Examples were given how the system was used such as a male living alone who had mild dementia but walked his dog daily.  He had a close friend as his responder who using the system could monitor if the dog had been walked, if his fridge had been opened as examples of monitoring his wellbeing and if assistance was required.

There was currently a 1 in 20 take up rate of those eligible with people saying:

•       They want to remain independent in their own home and want to reassure their selected friends/ family via the MySense dashboard.

•       They want to live without health and social care service intervention.

•       Particularly helpful for those with nutritional concerns and concerns about their mobility (e.g. fall risk).

•       But there was concern raised that the system was being  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

To consider the report.

Members considered the report regarding the progress against the Corporate Transformation Delivery Plan.

The Chief Executive informed that the report provided a list of projects and a RAG rating of how they were progressing.

The Chairman said it was good to see a lot of progress being made and asked if the sub-committee could be kept up tp date on progress made and delivery dates.

Cllr Hilton asked when the first BOTS were installed as they were due in July last year as chat bots should be used to aid residents find information on our website.  He was informed that referral to children’s services was already making use of technology with Thames Valley Police as the bot could flag an incident that could be missed by a human.  Chat bots for customer services had been pushed back due to the pandemic. 

Cllr Price mentioned that she and residents had experienced frustration when they want to change things but they do not get answers back from the council, how can we get change applied and pushed forward to residents and councillors.  She mentioned that specific examples had been sent to service areas.

Members noted the report.