Issue - meetings

To hear from Tom Brown and Alex McTeare on partnership working between Haringey Older People’s Services and Haringey Teaching Primary Care Trust.

There is a good partnership working relationship between front line workers.  For example, Social Workers, Occupational Therapists and Nurses.

However, the partnership working has not been quite as good on a more formalised basis.  For example, Joint Appointments.  There are currently no joint appointments in Older People Services, however this is something that is being discussed.

There is a desire to work towards a joint commissioning unit for improved service delivery.

There are currently two pooled budget arrangements between the TPCT and Haringey.  One of which is the Prevention Enabling Team which provides a range of services including Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy and Domiciliary Care.

This service identifies and intervenes in cases to prevent people going into hospital and works to enable independence.  It is accessed via the home care service and receives a number of referrals from people who have gone to A&E but who do not need to be admitted to hospital.

The service receives forty plus referrals a month.

An area for improvement is the joint working between Community Matrons and the Assessment and Care Management Teams, especially with regards to a more joined up system for identifying people in need of intervention.

Another area for improvement is in budgeting, it is hoped that in the next financial year this will have greatly improved but both parties need to be wary of pushing budgetary pressures onto each other.