Agenda and draft minutes

None received.

The Chair will consider the admission of any late items of urgent business.  Late items will be considered under the agenda items where they appear.  New items will be dealt with at item 9 below.

None received.

A member with a personal interest in a matter who attends a meeting of the authority at which the matter is considered must disclose to that meeting the existence and nature of that interest at the commencement of that consideration, or when the interest becomes apparent.

A member with a personal interest in a matter also has a prejudicial interest in that matter if the interest is one which a member of the public with knowledge of the relevant facts would reasonably regard as so significant that it is likely to prejudice the member's judgment of the public interest and if this interest affects their financial position or the financial position of a person or body as described in paragraph 8 of the Code of Conduct and/or if it relates to the determining of any approval, consent, licence, permission or registration in relation to them or any person or body described in paragraph 8 of the Code of Conduct.

None received.

To approve the minutes of the last meeting (atatched) and confirm action points.

At the last meeting it was noted that the Irish Centre wished to receive transport for an additional day for service users.  It was reported to the Panel that additional transport had now been provided and the Irish Centre has access to transport 4 days a week instead of 3.

Agreed: The Panel approved the minutes of the meeting held on 15^th October 2008.

To report back from service visits to:

Ermine Road – Learning Disability

The Grange – Older People

Keston Road – Learning Disability

Panel Members reported back on their visits to day centres at Ermine Road, Keston Road and The Grange.  A summary of the main points to emerge from a discussion of these visits is given below:

§         Members indicated that they had found the service visits both interesting and informative and wished to record that they were impressed with the professionalism of staff and the quality of care provided to service users.  Members indicated that they had observed many instances of excellent care provided by staff and wished this to be conveyed to the services.

§         Members noted that The Grange has the use of one vehicle for 55 service users whereas other day centres (Keston and Ermine) have more vehicles per service user (i.e. Keston has 6 vehicles for 120 service users).   Managers present reported that the service model used for learning disability and older people day centre care was very different, where the needs of service users precipitated a different pattern of vehicle usage.  It was noted, for example, that the needs of older people using The Grange allowed for a more flexible approach to transport planning as compared to service users from Keston and Ermine Road.

§         Members were concerned at the duration of passenger journeys to and from The Grange: at the time of Members visit, the pick up was in excess of 1hr 40 minutes.  The service recognised that journey times can be long, though normally the route at The Grange is split in to two shorter journeys.  Members also acknowledged that service users had been unprepared for the pick up which exacerbated the journey time.  The service also reported that whilst journey times were long, these were still considered to be beneficial in the context that many of the passengers were socially isolated adults.

§         It was confirmed that Keston Day Centre is currently not taking any further referrals because of the imminent transfer of services to new sites.  This is to lessen the anxiety and disruption that new clients would experience if they were required to transfer out of Keston Day Centre at a later point.  New service users are currently being managed through the Outreach Service on a 1-1 basis until the transfer in April 2009.

§         The Panel noted that Day Centres had taken a number of measures to improve the serviceability of transport routes.  Drivers were not restricted to specific routes so were aware of a number of different transport runs should they need to provide staff cover.  In addition, a buddying system was also introduced to ease new drivers on to planned routes.  There are also reciprocal arrangements between some of the smaller Day Centres (The Grange and The Haven) to provide emergency cover.

§         Panel Members that had visited Keston Day Centre were concerned at the disrepair of the building: there was a lot of water damage to the walls and plasterwork from the ceiling had also come down in the main hall.  Whilst it was recognised  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

To submit additional service data requested by the Panel (to be distributed separately).  

• Transport Diary

• Financial Data

• Additional monitoring data

Adult Social Care had submitted supplementary finance and monitoring information requested by the panel at the last meeting.  This information was circulated to the Panel at the meeting (attached).   As the information was not available before the meeting, this precluded any detailed examination of the documents, though the Panel made a number of preliminary observations and recommendations.

§         The service was requested to keep a transport diary for the week 20^th-24^th October to provide the Panel with a snapshot of transport activity (usage, journeys, destination, passengers etc).  It was reported to the Panel that although this had been undertaken, the service was still in the process of collating and analysing the data that was generated.  In this context some preliminary findings were highlighted to the Panel:

o       In the week of the assessment, there were no outings from the older people’s day centres, though the vehicles were providing additional transport runs to other drop-ins during this period.

o       There were 96 vehicle journeys and 570 passenger journeys made during the week within older people’s day care.

o       The average vehicle down time per vehicle per day was 3 hrs 20mins.

§         The Panel noted that for the service, the diary represented the start of the process of collecting meaningful monitoring data and that it would take time to find an appropriate system that collected the correct data in an appropriate and efficient manner. 

§         The Panel was keen to emphasise that it did not want the service to collect data unnecessarily and did not want to place any data requirement on the service that was over burdensome.  It was therefore important that the service find an appropriate balance.  In this context, the Panel were keen that the service continue with this data monitoring exercise and present their analysis of this data to the Panel at the next meeting.

Agreed:   That the service collates the transport diary data and presents an analysis of these findings with service recommendations/ developments.  To be for next Panel meeting (26^th November).

§         The service presented additional financial data requested by the Panel which included overall cost summaries and a breakdown of the component cost pressures for the transport budget in adult social care (these are attached).

§         The service reported that it was impracticable to compare the previous costs of the transport service (under the previous centralised system) with the new service based model of transport due to the recharge system. Under this system, services were recharged simply as a proportion of the overall transport costs for the whole borough wide passenger transport service which meant local managers had little control over their transport costs. 

§         It was reported to the Panel that with additional control that local managers had over their transport budgets, they were in the process of developing financial benchmarks for the service (unit costs and cost per passenger journey).  This data would help to develop comparisons with the performance of other passenger transport services.

§         The service  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

Progress report on service consultations (verbal).

It was reported to the Panel that the consultations with service users, carers and staff are progressing.  The surveys are still in the process of being developed and finalised and distribution was expected shortly.  The panel noted that the aim of the consultation was to enable a wider range of service users, carers and staff to participate in the review process.

It was expected that the consultation would be complete by the next meeting and the findings would be presented to Members.

To identify date(s) for future meeting(s).

Date of the next meeting 26^th November 2008.

None.