Agenda item

To receive a report by the Corporate Director and the Head of Regional Collaboration (copy enclosed) which presents the Committee with the North Wales Regional Partnership Board’s Annual Report on its activities during 2021/22.

 

10.45am – 11.15am

 

 

The Lead Member for Health and Social Care alongside the Head of Regional Collaboration presented the Regional Partnership Board – Annual Report 2021/22 (previously circulated).  The purpose of the report was to provide information to partners with regard to the North Wales Regional Partnership Board (NWRPB) and its activities during 2021/22.

 

In March 2018 the Welsh Government issued Guidance for the completion of the Regional Partnership Board Annual reports and Boards were expected to use this guidance for the completion of their reports. The report presented to the Committee contained all the information which was required to be included in accordance with the Guidance. The NWRPB report was written in a format that captured all information which required to be presented. The report also included views of a number of the Board’s members.

 

The Board had been established to meet the requirements of Part 9 of the Social Services and Well-Being (Wales) Act 2014. The Act required local authorities to make arrangements to promote co-operation with their relevant partners and others, in relation to adults with needs for care and support, carers and children. It also placed a duty on relevant partners to co-operate with, and provide information to, the local authorities for the purpose of their social services functions.

 

The Head of Regional Collaboration highlighted specific areas of interest within the report –

 

The Regional Partnership Board’s role is to bring together health, social services, housing, the third sector and other partners to work together to integrate health, social care and well-being services across the region.

 

To support the work undertaken there is a complex governance structure as you can see on page 6 of the Annual report.  The main board is the Regional Partnership Board which meets monthly and is responsible for setting a clear direction for partnership working and ensuring that this is achieved. The NWRPB formally reports to the North Wales Leadership Board.

 

Welsh Government provide us with revenue and capital funding to support this work. 

 

The Integrated Care Fund (ICF) was established in 2014 and enables health and social care services to work together to support: older people with complex needs and long term conditions including dementia people with learning disabilities children with complex needs due to disability or illness carers, including young carers children at risk of becoming looked after, in care or who are adopted.

 

And the transformation programme which commenced in April 2018 to improve health and social care services across Wales.

 

Both programmes were there to help deliver the Social Services and Wellbeing Act and the Welsh Government Strategy, A Healthier Wales through the Regional Partnership Board.

 

The last 12 months has seen the previous two programmes for Integration – Transformation Programme and the Integrated Care Fund come to an end and a new fund developed – the Regional Integration Fund.

 

 

• The Population Needs Assessment 2022 - the Board had successfully completed a full review of the North Wales Population Assessment in partnership with local authority and health board leads, supported by the Research, Innovation and Improvement Coordination Hub and Public Health Wales.  The data and analysis contained in this Assessment would be used to help shape regional priorities and area service plans going forward.

 

• The establishment of a Children’s Sub-Group of the NWRPB to provide strategic direction in respect of supporting families of children with specific health and social care needs.

 

The information contained in the Population Needs Assessment and Annual Report would assist the Board to scope and develop its regional priorities and to plan and improve services across the region.

 

During the discussion members raised the following matters –

 

·         concerns regarding with the multitude of different boards across North Wales and whether they causing resources to be spread too thinly. Responding officers clarified that the various boards had their own remits and dealt with matters accordingly.   The NWRPB had been established by the Welsh Government (WB) as a statutory Board and therefore its remit was defined in legislation.

·         The NWRPB was undertaking some really interesting and useful work with a view to delivering better integrated health and social care services, nevertheless the general public were not aware of the amount of work which was carried out by the Board.  This needed to be addressed and promoted.

·         The digitisation of the work was highlighted as a challenge as many of the Board members represented different authorities/bodies and the software systems of the various organisation were not compatible with each other.  This led to delays and frustration for those delivering services on the ground.  Problems had been encountered by the Community Resources Teams (CRTs) and the Learning Disabilities (LD) Services with regards to this. 

·         Members raised the issue with staffing in the care sector, and highlighted that staff were not being paid enough and appreciated for their work.  The NWRPB Workforce Board was actively engaging with Social Care Wales to address issues relating to pay, recruitment and retention, as well as attempting to influence WG and UK governments decisions in relation to these matters.

 

The Committee:

 

Resolved:  -

(i)   to confirm that it had read, understood and taken into account the work that was required to be undertaken by the Regional Partnership Board; and

(ii)  subject to the above observations on the work and progress during 2021/22 on the work areas being taken forward through the North Wales Regional Partnership Board, to receive the Annual Report and endorse its contents.