Agenda item

Serving Adults Through Optalis

To receive a presentation from Vernon Nosal.

Minutes:

Vernon Nosal (Head of Adult Social Care- Optalis), presented the above titled item. The vision and mission of adult services was outlined as fulfilling the potential of every customer, colleague and communities and to be a resilient, efficient and growing social care company which was capable of delivering high quality, innovative services to more customers, delivered by passionate and skilled staff. Core values were highlighted as quality customer service, respect, transparency and integrity, communication, continuous development and enjoyable and rewarding. Members of the Forum were told that the services provided by adult social care were community and application based and that various organisations such as WAM had helped in the delivery of services. Specialist care and support services had been separated into four different areas; community based, accommodation based, in the home and statutory services, advisory, brokerage and care management.

 

It was highlighted that there were 641 individuals employed within Adult Social Care and that care and support had been provided to approximately 5000 people. Care and support services were aimed at helping individuals with learning disabilities and autism, physical disabilities and sensory impairments, older people particularly those with dementia and persons affected by mental health issues. Members were told that services were in action across Wokingham, Ascot, Windsor, Maidenhead and Oxfordshire. RBWM statutory service delivery included safeguarding and deprivation of liberty safeguards (DOLS), Social Work, Occupational Therapy (OT) and Care brokerage. Provider services included residential accommodation for adults with a learning disability, day services for those affected by a learning disability, day centre services for older people and dementia patients, extra care facilities, reablement and respite services. Quality assurance and governance was also delivered both internally and externally.

 

Members were told that central to the 2020 strategy was to ensure customers were at the centre of decision making and planning through co-designing services and business development. This would be achieved by customers having a greater input over the people who work for Optalis, such as staff recruitment and selection. This has been achieved  by including customers as representatives on the interview panels for key senior roles, such as HR Manager and Head of Statutory Services. Part of the strategy delivery would include the development of customer forums and the hosting of a customer conference ( to be held the last week of September 2018). Customers had also been able to nominate an Optalis Member of staff/team for Optalis Customer Choice Award and were able to work with Optalis to co-produce information leaflets. A main driver for success in delivery of the Optalis 2020 Strategy was to receive feedback from customers and this had been done in a number of ways, such as coffee mornings.

 

The Optalis Staff Survey 2017 highlighted that 72% of staff were satisfied with their job role, vacancies had reduced by 47% since April 2017, Optalis vacancy rates were currently at 6% (national average 8.5%), 94% of staff had confidence that they understood safeguarding. It was outlined that there was a robust quality assurance framework in place after the transfer of RBWM Adult social care functions to Optalis had occurred. Reviews of all policies and procedures were undertaken regularly and a monitoring system had been implemented to ensure staff were applying them consistently. It was noted that implementation of the ‘Each Step Together’ approach had made supporting people and connecting community services successful. This had been evidenced by the reduction in the number of long term clients who had been eligible for review. Alongside service delivery, there had been great community engagement from staff employed at Heston Blumenthal’s- Fat Duck restaurant who had helped with decorating Boyn Grove Community Centre. A training day at Boy Grove had also taken place on the 13th March and reminiscence box training had also been delivered to showcase dementia services. Maidenhead Library had continues to run a carer’s drop in service and was run by an Optalis Social Care Practioner and a representative from Signal 4 Carers.