Corporate Director for Adult Social Care, Health and Homelessness, Anne Marie Lubanski, writes about the city’s plans to transform adult social care...
The people of Liverpool are well known for their sense of humour and warmth of welcome, but one thing that stands out above all else is simply how much the people of this city care. Whether that’s within families and friendship groups, wider communities or charities, there is always someone willing to offer support when it’s needed.
Then there are the more formal, Adults Social Care and Health services that are provided by Liverpool City Council. Generally, these are for those people who have been assessed as needing our support.
This could be for things such as providing reablement services for an elderly person after a stay in hospital. Or it may be to support an adult with a learning disability to live independently, or with ongoing support, in their community.
Most people will be aware of services such as carers who visit people in their own homes to help with personal care and care homes where people receive 24-hour care when they can no longer live at home.
However, Liverpool, like many other local authorities, is facing the challenges of rising demand and diminishing resources. In the context of Adult Social Care, this includes:
• greater number of older people who need support
• an increase in young adults with complex needs
• rising costs
Our ultimate aims are to support those with eligible care needs, to live the best life that they can, independently and for as long as possible, utilising the strengths within their community and a more digital offer to support their health and wellbeing and protecting the most vulnerable from physical and emotional neglect.
As part of the Council’s transformation programme, Adult Social Care and Health will be reviewing how it provides care and support. This will include questioning whether the right support is being given at the right time, for the right amount of time and exploring how we can work with communities and other organisations to prevent and delay people needing formal care services.
We will also be examining and rewriting the “pathways” that people follow when they come to us for help. The new pathways will put the person at the centre of every decision that is made. An easy way for our teams to check this is through the “mum test”. We ask ourselves, would I want this for my mum? If the answer is no, then we need to look again at how we’re providing our support.
As part of the Council’s overall plans, we will provide a modern and more efficient service to those people that need specialised support and we will be putting them at the heart of what we do.
