Agenda item

The Deputy Director of Adult Social Care presented on the Adult Social Care front door.

The following points were noted in the discussion:

·       Islington Adult Social Care’s vision was for Islington to be a place made up of strong, inclusive and connected communities, where regardless of background, people have fair and equal access to adult social care support that enables residents to live healthy, fulfilling and independent lives.

·       Adult Social Care Operating Model starts with Prevention and Early intervention including early help, problem solving at the first point of contact, outcome focused short term intervention, responding to complex needs and specialist teams. We are focusing on Prevention and Early intervention which means to work proactively to build on residents' skills, resilience and capacity to make positive and sustainable changes in the community. 

·       Residents could access services via the Adult Social Care “front door”.  The service also worked to de-escalate and connect our residents within the community

·       In relation to access service improvements, it was commented that the council was  on a journey and in the winter 2023/2024 Health and Adult Social Care front door services align to form ‘Integrated Front Door’. This would include a lot of strengths based work such as signposting.

·       It was important to understand demand coming into the service. Since the move to the online referral form, the council had  seen a decrease in points of contact (referrals & emails).  The online form had also led to a significantly better quality of referral. This had removed and redirected unnecessary traffic from the service and a 24% reduction in monthly average contacts.

·       From April 22 to January 2023 there had been an average of 3737 emails per month. From February to July 2023 there had been an average of 2852 referrals.

·       This sharp decrease was attributed to removing unnecessary points of contact from the service. It was important to get the referrals right, at the first time of asking. The Adult Social Care service was redefining pathways, making it easier for referrers to navigate the services.

·       80% of referrals are processed in 0-5 days. The time to process and complete referrals has improved since starting to use the forms in February. The previous system using emails  did not monitor processing times. Nearly 80% of referrals in July were processed in 0-5 days. (72% within 3 days). The percentage of referrals being completed in 0-5 days had increased over time. .

·       Between February and July, 75% of referrals were requested by professionals or care providers 181 (2%) of referrals came from an individual needing support.

·       Calls have increased since the changes to the telephony system: To provide a better residents experience the telephony was changed to include a single ASC option. Work was underway to identify the nature of the calls and if there is a link between the change in the call handling system and increase in calls.

·       There was a need to understand the increase in calls coming through to Access and identify appropriate action to make the resident experience better.

·       Officer were exploring further changes to the online offer, to make it more user friendly and support self-help.

·       Officers were also working with housing providers to remove unnecessary referrals which will give the team much needed additional capacity. 

·       The Access Team will begin a comprehensive training programme to enhance skills and further compliment the ASC service model. Integrating  our ‘Front Door’ with our with health colleagues  will create a more streamlined service for our residents, reducing handover points and delays in providing appropriate care.

·       The committee was informed that there will be further work on communications around the digital hubs and access Islington Hubs.

The Committee thanked officers for their attendance.