Joint Commissioning Intentions for Adults with LD
In January 2014, Somerset County Council (SCC) and Somerset Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) published their Joint Commissioning Intentions for Adults with Learning Disabilities 2014-2017. This report details existing needs and service provision and sets out a clear vision of how services will develop over the next three years, drawing on national policies together with estimated of demand locally. Extracts relating specifically to housing are provided below,
Scope of Care and Support Provision
Services for adults with learning disabilities are provided in various ways. SCC directly delivers 48% (52% by financial value) of care and support through the SCC in-house LD service. This covers:
The other half of care services are bought from a range of voluntary, not-for-profit and private sector suppliers.
Supported Living
In comparison with many of our nearest statistical neighbours, SCC has historically supported a larger proportion of people with learning disabilities in supported living arrangements rather than residential care. However this is changing as nationally the trend is towards only considering a residential care where a customer has nursing or near nursing needs due to the increased choice and control that the Supporting living model facilitates.
The Supported Living model has helped us to achieve better outcomes for individuals by promoting more independence, while also controlling escalating costs as those in supported living can access a range of housing–related benefits that sit outside the pooled budget. However, many of the existing properties do not offer the correct facilities required of the service in today’s environment. Some of the properties are 8-10 bed properties. Few supported housing properties have an appropriate balance between private and communal space within the buildings or the type of self contained accommodation that is favoured by many young people.
The Balance of Care and Support
Despite the good performance that Somerset already achieves in the balance of supported living and residential care there is still scope for improvement. In order to achieve this we will increase the proportion of people who have their needs met in the community, reducing our reliance on long-term residential care. This will require us to look at improved access to housing, enhancing supported living arrangements and home care, with an emphasis on building independence, whilst extending the use of Shared Lives.
Making accommodation fit for purpose
The Commissioning Intentions include:-
The associated key target is to produce a vulnerable persons' property strategy, including a costed, time limited, plan for any remodelling required, to be completed and signed off by 30th September 2014.
Improving Access to Housing
Our Intentions are to:
Supported Living and Domiciliary Care
Our Intentions are to:
Shared Lives
Somerset has a thriving and successful Shared Lives scheme, which mainly supports people with a learning disability. This will be further developed to provide good quality, cost-effective care in the following areas:
Residential Care
In future we will only consider commissioning a new residential care placement where:
Our target is for a 50% reduction in specialist residential care provision for people with learning disabilities across Somerset by 2020. Where customers are over 65, and their primary need does not relate to their learning disability, then our normal approach will be to commission generic residential and nursing care in the same way we would for any older person rather than from specialist providers. In order to achieve this change we will:
For more data and information related to Learning Disabilities, please see our LD webpage
Life expectancy is 80.5 (+-0.3yrs) years for men and 84.3 (+-0.3yrs) years for women in Somerset which is higher than national averages. - Life Expectancy