Minutes for Adult Services Sub-Committee meeting, Mar 25 2010, 2.00PM official page

The Sub-Committee had before it the minute of their previous meeting of
16^th November, 2009.

In terms of Article 5(B) (Learning Disability Services), the Convener reported that at a recent meeting of the CoSLA Health and Social Care Committee, of which he is a member, it was noted that a national review of Learning Disability Services would be undertaken by the Scottish Government in due course. He indicated that it was CoSLA’s intention to urge the Government to widen the review to include financial issues, specifically the considerable cost of care packages.

The Sub-Committee resolved:-

(i)         to approve the minute; and

(ii)        to otherwise note the information provided.

The Sub-Committee received a presentation from Claire Wilkie, Service Manager (Joint Futures), Social Care and Wellbeing in relation to Mental Health Services.

Claire Wilkie (a) advised that the vision for the Mental Health and Social Work Service was to provide a service to individuals with mental health problems that value, respects and listens to the individual; (b) explained that the aim was to provide support emotionally, psychologically and practically which enables individuals to take more control of their lives and meet their full potential based on the “recovery” philosophy; (c) indicated that there were four teams based at Royal Cornhill Hospital, namely Adult Mental Health North, South and Central and an Old Age Psychiatry Team consisting of approximately 33 social work staff; (d) outlined the structure and the role of the Social Workers within the teams; (e) provided information in relation to the Mental Health Officer Service indicating that there was a duty on the local authority to appoint sufficient Mental Health Officers in their area, which continued to be a challenge for the service, specifically in terms of covering the work of the Out of Hours Service at night; (f) intimated that poor mental health was one of the biggest social issues in Scotland, revealing that one in six people experience mental health problems; (g) advised that it was estimated that 2700 people in Aberdeen suffer with dementia and this was likely to rise to 4600 by 2031; and (h) outlined the key drivers, challenges and priorities for the service.

The Sub-Committee resolved:-

(i)        to recommend to the Social Care and Wellbeing Committee that a national review of Mental Health Services be undertaken and that this be referred to CoSLA for consideration.

(ii)                    to otherwise thank Claire Wilkie for her presentation.

The Sub-Committee received a presentation from Claire Wilkie, Service Manager (Joint Futures), Social Care and Wellbeing in relation to Substance Misuse Services. 

Claire Wilkie (a) advised that the Social Work team was referred to as the Community Care Addiction Team which was split into the Integrated Drugs Service and the Integrated Alcohol Service; (b) indicated that the Integrated Drugs Service would become the front door of the Drugs Service based at premises currently being built at the Timmer Market site; (c) explained that NHS Grampian were currently undertaking a review of the Substance Misuse Service; (d) explained that Family Support Workers were presently being recruiting to assist the Social Workers in assessing the parenting ability of people who use substances who will then provide appropriate support to enable individuals to become better parents and assist parents in making their home environment safe; (e) intimated that the Integrated Alcohol Service currently consists of four Social Workers who are overwhelmed by referrals; and (f) outlined the key drivers and challenges facing the service.

The Sub-Committee resolved:-

(i)        to recommend to the Social Care and Wellbeing Committee that a review of the membership of the Aberdeen Alcohol and Drugs Partnership Committee (AADP) be undertaken;

(ii)       to recommend to the Social Care and Wellbeing Committee that the AADP be asked to review the substance misuse self referral procedure, which was deemed to be cumbersome and inadequate; and

(iii)      to otherwise thank Claire Wilkie for her presentation.

The Sub-Committee received a presentation from Lesley Simpson, Team Manager Criminal Justice in relation to Criminal Justice Social Work Services.

Lesley Simpson (a) advised that Criminal Justice Social Work was created by the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 and was currently funded by the Scottish Government through a section 27 grant; (b) indicated that the aim of the service was to tackle offending behaviour to reduce risk of re-offending, effectively supervise and manage offenders in the community, assist prisoners re-settle into the community after release from custody, increase community safety, manage risk effectively and work to enhance desistance from offending; (c) intimated that the service included four probation teams, a throughcare team, a community service team, a criminal justice drug and alcohol team, a prison social work team and a team located at St Fitticks House (14 bed residential resource for offenders) consisting of 100 employees in total; (d) explained that the service had prepared 2284 court reports during February 2009 to February 2010, dealt with 1240 clients who required supervision in the community and 179 requiring supervision within prison of whom 588 were on probation and 549 were on community service; (e) provided a client profile breakdown of the issues affecting the 80% of clients who were male and 20% who were female which included mental health problems and alcohol and drug issues; (f) outlined the services provided for clients who were on probation and the work undertaken by those on community service; (g) advised that the service works in partnership with the Procurator Fiscal, NHS Grampian, Grampian Police, the Prison Service, Aberdeenshire Council, voluntary organisations and other City Council services; and (h) described the developments, programmes and projects which the teams were undertaking.

Lesley Simpson concluded by advising that feedback in terms of the Caledonian Programme would be submitted to the Sub-Committee for consideration if the Council’s bid for funding was successful.

The Sub-Committee resolved:-

to note the information provided and to thank Lesley Simpson for her presentation.

The Sub-Committee had before it for consideration, a statement of Committee Business prepared by the Director of Legal and Democratic Services. 

The Sub-Committee resolved:-

(i)         to remove item 3 (Elmwood Project) from the statement, referred to at Article 6 of this minute;

(ii)        to remove item 2 (Criminal Justice Services Improvement Plan) from the statement on the basis that the information sought would be included within the performance monitoring balance scorecard regularly reported to the Social Care and Wellbeing Committee; and

(ii)        to otherwise note the Sub-Committee Business Statement.

EXEMPT INFORMATION

The Council resolved in terms of Section 50(A) (4) of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 to exclude the press and public from     the meeting during consideration of the following item of business so as to avoid disclosure of exempt information of the class described in             paragraph 3 of Schedule 7(A) of the Act.

The Sub-Committee had before it for consideration, a report by the Director of Social Care and Wellbeing on the progress of resettlement of Aberdeen City Council clients from Elmwood, NHS Grampian’s assessment and treatment facility for people with Learning disabilities and mental health support needs.

The report (a) advised that Elmwood was an NHS facility situated close by the Cornhill Hospital site and was an assessment and treatment facility for people with learning disability and mental health needs; (b) indicated that the facility was opened seven years ago with a view to the unit offering short term intervention, although some people transferred from the long stay Ladysbridge Hospital; (c) explained that In subsequent years Aberdeen City Council had seen some of these original Ladysbridge patients joined by other patients from the community; (d) stated that the Elmwood project began in September 2007 when there were ten patients for whom Aberdeen City Council had responsibility and who had been ready for discharge for some time with no appropriate facility identified; (e) advised that the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland wrote to the Chief Executive in 2008 informing him that they were considering ‘Escalation measures’ toward Aberdeen City Council in relation to the lack of progress in identifying appropriate options in a community setting for the individuals concerned; (f) indicated that this lack of a resolution was in part due to the assessments of the individuals being hospital focused rather than community focused, which resulted in a view that there was a need to find hospital type facilities in the community; (g) explained that a screening assessment tool known as HALO was used to establish an indicative cost of the support packages required from these earlier assessments, which indicated that a community service would cost an average of £200,000 per individual per year; (h) revealed that It was necessary to re-assess these individuals, therefore a jointly funded project between the City Council and NHS Grampian saw Essential Lifestyle Plans completed for all ten of the original Elmwood patients; (i) explained that a contributing factor to why these people had not moved earlier was that existing services would not have been appropriate for them and there would have been a high risk of the service ultimately breaking down; (j) advised that more personalised support plans were developed that saw estimated annual support costs reduce to £750,000 from the £2m which was originally estimated; and (k) made reference to the remaining clients within the unit and the work to be undertaken to plan for their discharge, specifically highlighting the delay in receiving risk assessments which were to be undertaken by a qualified psychologist.

The report recommended:-

that the Sub-Committee –

note the content of the report and the progress with discharging patients from Elmwood to the community.

The Sub-Committee heard Pete Richmond provide an update in terms of the progress to resettle the remaining clients at Elmwood.

The Sub-Committee resolved:-

(i)        that the report be amended to contain the updated information provided by Pete Richmond and that it be referred to the Social Care and Wellbeing Committee for consideration; and

(ii)        to otherwise note the report.

- JAMES KIDDIE, Convener.