A report to the Council’s Adult Care and Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee in June informed Councillors that the contracts for providers of community support services to adults with learning disabilities are being re-tendered.  These contracts include support services such as help for learning disabled adults with shopping and in taking part in activities or attending appointments together with the travel buddying scheme which trains and support learning disabled adults to travel independently.

Selected service providers will offer rates for providing a range of services which learning disabled adults can purchase using their personal budgets.  Currently, the providers of the travel support schemes have recruited and trained more than 25 adults with mild learning disabilities to act as buddies and this has proved an exciting local development.  Experience of employing learning disabled adults is included as a requirement of the new contract and, under questioning from the LINk representative, the Council gave a clear commitment to ensuring that the providers of services under the new contracts continued with the practice of offering employment to learning disabled adults in these travel support roles.

Deputation Request – Disabled Adaptations

 The Wandsworth LINk representative at the meeting joined the call for a fuller review of the Harmoni services.

This flat rate will be used as a basis for negotiating new contracts with the voluntary sector clubs which provide these services.  The flat rate will not be modified according to the relative deprivation of the elderly populations in any of the four areas even though it is known that a far higher proportion of more deprived people use these day services. 

This is out of line with Wandsworth Council’s normal approaches which do take account of the significant differences in relative levels of wealth among different groups of elderly people and attempt to overcome the disadvantage this causes. 

The Wandsworth LINk representative attending the meeting argued strongly for an approach which took account of deprivation but this was not agreed.

Hospital Outpatient Services now at Bridge Lane

Friday 11 February 2011

Lengthy trips to the hospital for outpatient appointments could soon be a thing of the past for Battersea residents, now that the Bridge Lane Health Centre has an extra seven new consulting rooms. Completed in December 2010, this additional 800 sqm provides a light airy welcoming space for patients and will not only mean the practice makes much better use of its environment following a refurbishment of their area, but also allows the Bridge Lane Health Centre to contribute to NHS Wandsworth’s shift of care agenda. This will see a range of the outpatient services currently provided in hospitals, relocated into local community settings, such as health centres and GP practices, making them much easier for people to get to and use.
 

Later this month, patients will be able to opt to visit the Bridge Lane Health Centre for their ophthalmology outpatient appointments. From April 2011, NHS Wandsworth will begin to commission dermatology clinics at the Centre, closely followed by orthopaedics, sexual health clinics and other outpatient based services, which are all scheduled to be available from this site later in the year.  The extra capacity will also provide clinical space for services aimed at supporting patients living with long-term conditions and healthcare promotional events.
 Dr Snape, GP at Bridge Lane Group Practice said: “We’re very impressed with what has been achieved with this refurbishment and new build in such a short space of time and the potential increase in services it provides for Battersea residents. The building’s improvements will not just benefit our patients, but also patients registered at other practices, as well as those living or working in different parts of the borough. In fact, anyone in Wandsworth needing an outpatient appointment for any of the services on offer at this site, that would find Bridge Lane a much more convenient location, can chose to have it at this site by just asking their GP to refer them here.”

Sister Act Leaders Team aims to raise awareness of disability and encourage people to get more involved in the Wandsworth community. We run small groups and advise the council, PCT and local organisations. We all have learning disabilities. We would like to run a drop in support centre for people who have any kind of learning difficulty or disability. We can give face-to-face advice, information and training that is easy to understand.  The drop in centre will be a welcome place where people can have a cup of tea, talk to a friendly person and learn how to be more independent.

So instead of shopping at Tesco, Asda or Sainsbury’s this month, why not go to Waitrose Balham? Drop your green token for Sister Act and help them earn money toward their dream: To provide a face to face advice support and training service for people with learning disabilities by people with learning disabilities.

A major item on the agenda of the OSC was the approval of the closure of Hartfield House, a residential respite centre for Adults with a Learning Disability.  Councillor Clare Clay, as the Carers’ Champion gained an agreement from the Committee that Hartfield House would not close until its replacement services were in place, that these services would have sufficient capacity for friendship groups to be able to have their respite stays together and that the total respite resource would be large enough to accommodate emergency placements which had been steady at around five people at any time without impacting on the respite service.

Changes in the arrangements for the mental Health Resource Centres were also approved.  These signalled a move away from building-based services towards a more one-to-one support service to help users who had suffered from mental illness to return to normal life and employment.  The LINk representative made the point that the availability of social outlets for people recovering from metal illness was still an important part of the recovery process for many and that this need should still be addressed.

For the full details of the reports discussed at the meeting go to

http://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/moderngov/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=498&MId=3506&Ver=4

roger

The National Media is plagued with stories of vital charities having their budgets cut by Local Authorities, and Wandsworth is no different. The Council, in what many will see as a misguided attempt to meet budget cuts, have just slashed ¼ million pounds from the funding for some of the Boroughs most valued Voluntary Sector Organisations.

The cuts, which will come into place in April, will see Age Concern losing £83,000 from their budget, Wandsworth Community Transport standing to lose £20,000 and the Care’s Centre will be without £5,000, if proposals go ahead.

The implications of cutting the vital services these organisations provide has far reaching implications as Jenny Weinstein, the Chair of Wandsworth LINk, which is a voice for care users, carers and patients has pointed out:

‘These are very substantial cuts for the Voluntary Care Sector and they will directly impact on some of the most vulnerable people living in Wandsworth. In LINk’s view cutting voluntary sector budgets that provide vital preventive services is short sighted.  It will not only hurt the most needy people in the Borough, but, in the longer term, it will put more pressure on expensive statutory social care and NHS services which are also seeing their budgets slashed… `

Central Government says it wants charities to start providing more services as part of it’s ‘ new ‘Big Society,’ and its right to believe that local and voluntary organisations are often more effective than the State in tackling social problems. But, if cuts like this continue, they will destroy the very organisations which could and should, form the foundations of this new ‘Big Society’.

By Nick Bostock, 26 January 2011

In an exclusive interview with GP, national clinical commissioning network lead for England Dr James Kingsland warned that the government’s NHS reform plans would fail without a ‘cultural shift’ among GPs.

To save £5 billion a year, the NHS needs to save around 40p per patient every working day of the year, Dr Kingsland said.

‘For a practice of 6,000 patients, that’s about £2,500 per day you need to save by doing something remarkable in your prescribing, in urgent care, in long-term condition management,’ he said.

GPs need to apply the management skills they use to run their own practice finances to their use of wider NHS resources, Dr Kingsland said.

‘That’s where it starts – within consultations, recognising that you align your clinical decision-making with the resources that are deployed.

‘If we don’t get that right in every consultation, in every general practice in England, the reforms can’t work.

‘Every GP needs to recognise that when you make a referral that is a commissioning act.’