Last week the Kings Fund and Nuffield Trust produced a report, ‘Home Truths’, demonstrating the impact of the local authority spending cuts over the last six years on social care. The report highlights the combined pressures on services, such as maintaining Fundamental Standards (CQC), working towards achieving the Living Wage, dealing with contract cuts, as well as coping with significant staffing shortages. Cumulatively these pressures have meant that many services have fallen short of demand and for some there have been serious failings. However, for the majority, the shortcomings are visible in delayed discharges from hospital, which has a negative fiscal impact.

The report highlights some of the strategies adopted by services to compensate for these cuts. For example, some providers are relying more heavily on privately funded clients to subside their local authority contracts. Some are actively identifying options for support in the wider communities and using volunteers to bolster their service.

The report warns that the social care sector will not cope against the continued planned cuts and additional sector pressures, and recommends three possible options to address the dismal outlook:

  • achieving more with less
  • a different offer
  • long term reform

Whilst the latter two can be debated over the longer term by politicians and senior social care figures alike, providers need to be getting on with the ‘what can we achieve for less’ more imminently. There is an urgent and critical need to think outside the box about how we can do things differently.

As part of the ongoing strategic review many services have been actively reviewing their resource input against their outputs and outcomes in an attempt to get more for less. Good business strategists understand that the skill lies in leveraging resources effectively to create a comfortable operating profit. This isn’t always about cutting back but rather doing things differently. Training is one example of a resource that can be manipulated for different outcomes. There has been a growing reluctance to spend on training, with more services opting instead to develop independent capabilities or deliver E learning in the hope that this widens the profit margin. However, in reality some of these ‘cutting corner’ decisions can impact on quality, leaving services ill prepared to ‘fire fight’ issues such as safeguarding incidences, health and safety concerns, complaints and/or poor service outcomes. Many of these matters often rear their ugly head at a time when services are logistically challenged, forcing the focus on resources toward just covering the job instead of on maintaining and improving outcomes.

On a more strategic level, within our local area some excellent joined up thinking has been going on. Integrated projects have developed, which have been supported by the pooling of NHS funding (Better Care Fund), aiming for smarter working through integrated practice. One of these projects works with care homes to reduce hospital admissions. Hospitals are very disabling places for people living with dementia, and poor outcomes are typically observed; economic and individual. Clearly there is a lot of work to be done to upskill staff to ensure that there is a timelier reporting of health concerns through better quality observations, and ensuring that preventative measures are put in place to avoid unnecessary admissions.

 

One of the areas that has seen the largest cut in funding is community based services, such as support at home (homecare). Spending is down a whopping 30% despite policy objectives to support more people in the community. This is a significant cut in comparison to residential and nursing services which were only cut by 4 – 6%. Home care services now are delivering more hours for less money.  So what solutions are there available for our home care services?

 

This key question has been the driving force behind the development of Home Spirit, a platform developed for home care providers. The platform equips services with the tools to literally think differently, be proactive and add value to their service.

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The portal consists of a number of tools. The person centred planning tool has several potential domains which are selected by the client, and are based on their specific identified outcomes. It is easy to use and prints and uploads reports, making sharing easy. It avoids duplication, or having to write anything out so saves time. It can be completed on mobile while at the client’s home, and, with an easy to use navigation system, it has sensory appeal. The tool helps agencies to reduce operational costs in assessment and reporting. It can highlight risks easily, both those that are determined by the individual as well as the care agency. The report can be produced in a shorter version (similar to a one page profile) which informs busy workers in a simple snapshot HOW to provide the support. At £19 per month for as many reports as required, it is also excellent value.

The environment audit is intended to be a proactive tool. It may reduce hospital admission and risk of falls through environment assessment. It can be used by families and individuals to identify potential assistive technologies (a requirement of the NICE Home Care guidelines 2015), which include health monitoring options, safety and activity monitors, and leisure and communication technologies. These technologies now have a much wider scope and can promote human connection and tackle loneliness. Loneliness has been linked to poor health outcomes, leading to additional financial burdens on community and NHS services. Tackling loneliness through supported use of assisted technologies is only one of the many benefits that can be introduced by the tool.  The environment audit tool also makes simple recommendations for environmental adaptation to improve independence. The environment tool will also make recommendations around how an environment can be adapted around a specific task for a person with dementia, and therefore informs and educates, offering a tailored support plan.

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The ‘still my life’ post diagnostic tool is completely Fully Funded to access and helps families to plan together to take proactive steps to manage the condition; this aims to reduce anxiety. One of the first questions asks the person to consider the difficulties they face and what actions they plan to put in place to mediate these challenges. The design of the tool aims to encourage people to rehearse their own strategies, helping them recall them with more proficiency, as well as have very clear goals on how to compensate for their difficulties. Another question prompts the person to consider aspects of life that they appreciate and value (positive psychology), this can have a direct therapeutic value.

One of the questions guides individuals to complete appropriate legal planning. Local authority resources spent making ‘best interest’ decisions could be avoided by documenting decisions in a timelier manner. The planning tool provides accessible guidance on how these measures can be put into place. The tool also asks individuals to consider early interventions for nutrition and sleep. As 72% of people living with dementia are also living with another condition (co-morbidity), early strategies to support sleep and nutrition can have a positive effect, reducing risks of delirium and inappropriate admissions to hospital. The post diagnostic planning tool can be easily downloaded and completed on paper. This additional tool is potentially an asset to home care providers, as providing access to this resource as part of your service shows that you provide added value.

Perhaps more importantly a tool like this provides hope, and motivates families and individuals to think proactively.

The circle of support tool helps to identify communities of support to build upon existing community networks and engender a sense of belonging and affiliation to the wider community.

The learning resources (infographics) available through the portal support staff, through bite-size learning, to observe better, develop better relationships, and improve reporting.  The flexible resource reduces the need for staff to be removed for training at critical pressure times. Community services are now working with higher levels of need and the skills sets required are reflective of this. Appropriate investments need to be made in knowledge management. The resources available on this portal are specifically designed to work well in busy environments.

Therefore, while services are scratching their heads considering their next move to survive this hostile environment, Home Spirit have been actively developing a solution. The benefits of the Home Spirit tool are potentially far reaching and offer a legitimate opportunity to services to do things differently and to achieve more for less.

For more information and to start your 30 day trial, visit: www.homespirit.org