Issue - meetings

Report of the Director of Environment and Neighbourhoods. To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Tackling Inequality and Resident Services.

The redesign of the Resident Carers' Permit to ensure that it meets the complex needs of those being cared for at home.

The Cabinet Member for Tackling Inequality and Resident Services introduced the report which took forward the next steps in the development of a redesigned parking permit offer to support residents being cared for in their homes.

The Cabinet Member described the changes to the social care landscape and the complex array of professional caregivers providing older people, disabled people and terminally ill residents with a range of services, meaning some residents were seeing between five and six caregivers a day.

The proposed resident carers permit responded to these growing care needs and the Cabinet Member was glad that residents had asked for a change in policy and had also helped co – develop this product. This would be a free physical and transferable permit that would be given to the resident to pass to their carers when visiting and then be passed back to them. This would significantly help residents with care needs living in CPZ areas.

In response to questions from Cllr Connor the following information was noted:

• Very few residents would have more than one person coming to their home to give them care at any one time. There would not be booklets available and a single transferable permit provided. However, it was recognised that there will be situations that two carers may be needed for example for manual handling and this issue would be addressed in the next development stage of carer permit which would be co – designed with residents. It was firstly a priority to ensure that there was an easy application process with one step evidence and then there would be an assessment of the anomalies that occur and the flexibility needed in the application process. This would be explored at the next stage of development.

• The cost to the budget outlined was £20,000 and this was associated with the loss of income from residents paying for visitor permits and not the new policy.

• The service would be working on the design of the permit with residents and looking at a hologram style and exploring if technology would allow a barcode to be added to help PCO officers understand if a stolen permit was being used more quickly.

RESOLVED

1.    To note the outcome of the consultation on the parking needs of residents being cared for in their homes set out in section 7 of the report and agrees for the Council to proceed to statutory consultation on the Proposed Care at Home parking permit set out in Appendix 2.

2.    To approve that the existing Resident Carer Permit scheme be replaced with a new Care at Home parking permit that offers one free transferable permit to residents living within a Controlled Parking Zone (CPZ), who require essential home visits by a doctor, district nurse, similar healthcare professional or voluntary carers.

3.    To approve that the Care at Home Permit:

(a)  is limited to the CPZ in which the applicant resides

(b)  may be used only in resident permit holder and shared use (permit  ...  view the full minutes text for item 80