Wandsworth Council

report by Roger Appleton

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.

The Wandsworth LINk representative at the Council’s Housing Overview and Scrutiny Committee last Monday asked a series of questions about a report proposing a reduction in the annual budget for adaptations to private-sector residential premises funded under the Disabled Facilities Grant.  In previous years, the grant from central Government had been topped up by the Council.  In 2011/12, this will no longer happen and the total budget will be capped at £538,000.  Since expenditure in 2010/11 was nearer £900,000, there is a risk that some vital adaptations will not be funded in the current year.  The Council is planning to introduce a priority system and also to get contributions from Housing Associations for adaptations carried out to their premises.  The Council has promised to consult on the priority system before it is introduced and to report back on the impact of the budget reductions.   The full answe rs to the questions asked by the LINk is attached.

Deputation Request – Disabled Adaptations

Wandsworth  Council has now approved a full response to the Wandsworth LINk Hospital Discharge Report.  The response is a joint one on behalf of all the local health and social care agencies.  Almost all of the LINK’s proposals in the original report have been agreed and plans put in place to ensure the changes take place.  The exception is the issue of who should coordinate discharges which take place at weekends.  The LINk will continue to encourage local hospitals to discharge patients in a planned way at weekends if the patient is ready to go home and any community service needed is in place.  The full Council response is attached.

Council Response to LINk Hospital Discharge Report

 By: Charlie Masson Smith 
Telephone 020 8871 6173 or Email: cmassons@wandsworth.gov.uk

Wandsworth Council leader Edward Lister is to take over as the Mayor of London’s chief of staff and deputy mayor for planning.

Cllr Lister, who has led Wandsworth since 1992 succeeds Sir Simon Milton who died last week. He is expected to begin work at City Hall next month.

Under Cllr Lister’s leadership Wandsworth became the most successful value for money local authority in the country – combining a four star Audit Commission rating for excellence with the country’s lowest council tax bills and top satisfaction ratings from its residents.

He has been a leading campaigner on environmental, quality of life and transport issues and played a lead role in forming the all-party alliance in south west London that defeated plans to expand Heathrow. He was also a member of the Forensic Audit Team appointed by the Mayor following his election in 2008.

He will manage the Mayor’s budgets, relations with the boroughs and ensure City Hall continues to deliver the Mayor’s priorities.

With specialist knowledge of planning, Cllr Lister is ideally placed to advise the Mayor and ensure the right balance is struck between much needed development and respecting the city’s skyline and character.

He is currently leader of the Conservative Group on London Councils.

Cllr Lister said: “I am incredibly proud to be following in Sir Simon’s footsteps and excited to be joining Boris’s team at City Hall.

“This is a great time to become involved in the running of London. It’s uniquely placed to attract investment in new development that will improve the quality of life for Londoners.

“It’s a huge wrench to be leaving Wandsworth. We have a superb team which is committed to showing how a local council can deliver modern, effective services at a price people can afford.” 

The Mayor said: “Edward has the perfect combination of experience, character and expertise to help me lead this city out of recession and harness the unique opportunity of the 2012 Games to secure London for another generation as the best big city in the world.”

Cllr Lister is currently chairman of the Vauxhall Nine Elms Battersea Strategy Board where he worked alongside Sir Simon. The board comprises major landowners and developers, the GLA and Wandsworth and Lambeth councils.

The board is driving investment throughout the VNEB area which includes the new US Embassy and the proposed Northern Line extension to Battersea Power Station. The area has potential for 16,000 new homes and 25,000 jobs and is the biggest regeneration opportunity in central London.

Cllr Lister is also a leading champion for Localism. Before last year’s General Election Cllr Lister co-authored ‘A Magna Carta for Localism’ with the leaders of Westminster and Hammersmith and Fulham councils setting out policy options for the new Government.

‘Magna Carta II’, which will be published next month, will develop the case for financial freedoms for local government.

Cllr Lister’s appointment at City Hall means he will stand down as leader of Wandsworth Council.

Wandsworth LINk members are urging carer’s to sign the e petition against the cuts to carer’s services in Wandsworth. If councillors cut care and support services the repercussions will be disastrous. Families with caring needs will be pushed to breaking point and their health and life chances will suffer. Many carers in our community could not cope with the impact of services being cut or reduced. Carers rely on support services that help them with everyday tasks that most people take for granted.

If you yourself are a carer please sign this petition and encourage others to show their support either on the paper petition which you will need to print out from the carersUK toolkit,(attached) or online at the link below, both paper and electronic versions can be counted as one petition. Please return any completed paper versions to Nadeene Morris at WCEN, by 9^th March. (Address below)

http://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/moderngov/mgePetitionlistDisplay.aspx

Unit 44

Wandsworth Community Empowerment Network

Charlotte Despard Avenue

SW11 5HD

A report to Wandsworth Council’s Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee revealed what local people think of the out-of-hours GP services provided by Harmoni.  Less than 50% of respondents to a survey rated the care they received as good and less than 60%stated that they found it easy to contact the service.  In both these cases, Harmoni scored worse than the average scores either for London or nationally.  For a full report on this go to http://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/moderngov/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=13125

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

At this weeks Overview and Scrutiny Committee Wandsworth Council annouced proposals to re-allocate existing resources for a new approach to day services for elderly people by using a flat-rate per capita allocation based on the number of elderly people in each of four areas of the borough. 

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.

Date of issue: Thursday 27^th January 2011

Thursday 27^th January 2011 saw the unveiling of the newly refurbished central health unit at Wandsworth Prison. The unit has been completely overhauled, with what was formerly considered a grey, soulless, drab and depressing environment replaced by a vibrant and comfortable setting which has helped to encourage inmates to access health education, support and treatment. Services at the prison are provided by a St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust multi-disciplinary nurse-led team that also includes GPs, dentists, sexual health specialists and pharmacists.

The overhaul of the health unit is part of the King’s Fund Enhancing the Healing Environment project, a grants and development programme run by the King’s Fund in partnership with Her Majesty’s Prison Service and Offender Health (a partnership between the Ministry of Justice and the Department of Health).

A team of healthcare staff at Wandsworth Prison successfully won a £30,000 grant from the project, with NHS Wandsworth and the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse (NTA) contributing a further £10,000 each. The nurse-led team behind the overhaul included service users, estates staff, arts co-ordinators and Julie Thompson, HMP Wandsworth Residential Governor.

The money has been spent on improving the reception area and treatment rooms, converting the healthcare areas of the prison so that they are welcoming and relaxing.

Bernadette McGreevy, Sister at Wandsworth Prison, said:

“There is a wealth of research evidence to show the positive impact that the environment can have on health so we were really keen to take advantage of the King’s Fund expertise in this area, and we are already seeing the benefits of this programme. There has been a really noticeable effect on patients’ self esteem as they feel like they are being treated in an environment that they would be happy to be treated in if they were in the community. We are also starting to see improved health outcomes and more inmates willing to access health education and support as well as treatment”

Jim O’Gorman, Head of Healthcare at Wandsworth Prison, said:

“It is important to recognise that prisoners are normal people like you and I. Their needs are the same and they want to be treated with dignity and respect, the basic things that we would demand, and being treated in areas like, that are comparable to facilities in the community, can be a catalyst for change. It was important that staff worked with the inmates in every aspect of designing the new environment, increasing engagement with our service users and helping but it has helped us to establish new ways of consulting them.”

Emma Leegood, Lead Nurse at Wandsworth Prison, said:

“Prisoners access health services 77 more times a year than an average person in the community, and we have a responsibility to make sure that those services are provided in the best possible environment with the best possible facilities.”

Sarah Waller, King’s Fund programme director for the Enhancing the Healing Environment, said:

“For many prisoners real opportunities exist to access healthcare services, sometimes for the first time in many years, whilst they are in prison. It is therefore very important that healthcare and health promotion activities are delivered in an environment that encourages people to attend clinics and supports therapeutic interventions. The project at Wandsworth has been planned in consultation with prisoners and staff and has greatly improved facilities for the delivery of healthcare in the prison. We hope it will encourage more prisoners to access and benefit from the range of healthcare services available.” 

-Ends-

Notes to editors

Wandsworth Prison is the largest prison in the UK with a capacity of 1,665 and an annual turnover of 5,000 inmates a year.

For more information, please contact the communications team at St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust on 020 8725 5151 or email communications@stgeorges.nhs.uk. Outside working hours, please page the team by calling 0844 822 2888, leaving a short message and contact details for pager SG548. High res photos available on request.

Wandsworth Councillors, at the last meeting of the Adult Care and Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee, agreed to set up a Shadow Health and Wellbeing Board.  This will have representation from local voluntary agencies as well as from the primary care trust and the local GPs and Councillors on a broad partnership body and there will also be a more limited Executive Group which will have representatives from local GPs, the Council and the PCT.  Wandsworth LINk has been given a seat on both the partnership and the Executive Group.  The first meeting will consider the updated Joint Strategic Needs Assessment.

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’.