Agenda item

Cllr Guest presented this item and notes were attached, hard copies were also provided in case members had not received them.

Cllr Birnie said that he was concerned about the question of setting up a trading company, and asked if there were any more details available.

Cllr Guest replied that was in place in case so if a company that was contracted by the County Council to provide home care fails then the Local Authority Trading Company will step into the breach to provide the home care to ensure that the service users are still cared for.

Cllr Birnie said the he understood what the company would do but he could not understand the need to set up a commercial trading company.

Cllr Guest said that under the terms of the company the vast majority of its business will be coming from Herts County Council.

Cllr Birnie asked if the people who will work for this company would be the kind of people that would be social carers employed by the Council.

Cllr Guest said that most of the home care is purchased from home care provider companies but if one of those companies fails then there is a risk that people could be left without care so the County Council set up their own company that step in in that instance.

David Evans said that from his knowledge of working in partnership with them, the market place is so insecure at the moment that we have seen some failure in health care. The in house provision is set up using people employed by Herts County Council and is used as a back-up.

Dr Fernandez said that he thought the staff would be moved over and the aim is that they are ready to do this rather than leaving it until the last minute..

Cllr Guest confirmed that they would come over.

Kevin Minier – said that he felt it was important for Dacorum to have this as health care companies have failed in this.

David Evans noted that carer’s are now protected and that lots of work is happening to ensure that this is recognised and understood. .

Cllr England asked about a question regarding a sentence in the document paragraph 2 the last sentence which mentions areas for consideration as he was unsure what it really means.

Cllr Guest asked what part of this he would like clarified.

Cllr England replied that he would like it all clarified.

Cllr Guest explained that areas of consideration were what used to be known as areas of development and what were previously known as weaknesses – basically they are things that the County Council needs to look at and needs to work on and things that the health and social care system for adults need to work on.

Cllr England asked about evidence based commissioning and in particular aligning the workforce strategy to fit the service models that we want he thought that perhaps that meant it is easier to have everybody in one place so that it is possible to be more ‘agile’ with how we work.

Cllr Guest said that her understanding is that the County Council has service models that we want for example ‘Connected Lives’ which discussed at the Adult Care Health Panel, which is about enabling vulnerable people to take more control of their lives, The workforce strategy needs to be aligned to fit in with this and employ the right skill mix and give the right training.

Dr Fernandez said that everyone knows there is an increasingly aging population and there are different needs and what this is saying is that work needs to make sure there are changes in the service according to this changing population and therefore they will need to develop the workforce to deal with the changes that take place.