Opportunity to help improve care services for adults with autism

Dear Members,

Today the Department of Health launched a consultation to help improve care services and healthcare outcomes for adults of autism in England.

I think that as a provider your views will be an important voice in shaping how the needs of adults with autism are to be met.

It will be you and your staff who will be delivering services to adults with autism and so I strongly urge you to contribute.


This consultation as well as the draft guidance document can be viewed below.
Fulfilling and rewarding lives:
http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_113369
Opportunity to help improve care services for adults with autism:
http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Consultations/Liveconsultations/DH_118058

15th July 2010

The end of last week and the beginning of this week have been very busy with meetings, seminars etc.

Last Friday I attended a Social Care Institute for Excellence seminar in London about innovation in Social Care. Those of you who have heard me speak in the last year will know that I believe that innovation and modernisation may be part of the future for many care providers and that I think the introduction of the new regulator may allow more flexibility in the way services are provided in care homes.

This Friday Nadra will be spending the day working on briefing papers etc to be submitted to Ministers, MPs and other opinion makers about this and several other issues. As we release them we will also put them on the website so watch this space!

On Monday I went to the launch of The State of the Ault Social Care Workforce in England 2010 report. The report collates and analyses the information collected by the NMDS-SC project and makes interesting reading.

The report is available on the Skills for Care website:

www.skillsforcare.org.uk/research/research_reports/annual_reports_SCW.aspx

25th June 2010

The event in Birmingham yesterday was excellent, a great deal of emphasis on dementia care which is as it should be I think.

I’ve had a meeting here at the office with our staff about our annual conference on 20 and 21 October this morning. This year for the first time we are splitting up the Conference into two quite separate days. The first day was what we were concentrating on this morning. On that day we will be holding two separate conferences, one about dementia care and one for providers of services to adults with a learning disability.

It was the conference about dementia care that we sorted out today. We have managed to agree the conference programme and now need to hope that everyone we have invited to speak is able to attend. We have already had expressions of interest from as far away as America.

I am away from the office now for just over a week but if anything significant happens I will manage to publish an update.

Have a good weekend.

Sheila

24th June 2010

I have driven to Birmingham today for the National Care Congress. This afternoon I will be chairing the final session of the conference. I have been able to spend the morning constructively engaged. I have visited a number of exhibitors talking about new products and I have also been able to talk to Cheryl at length about our plans for the summer.

More a out that later!

22nd June 2010

I am off to a meeting in 1 hour with the new Minister. Not just me of course but with 20 other people. It should be an excellent event scheduled to last for 3 hours and I ought to come away with a much better impression of where Social Care sits within the new Government agenda .

18th June 2010

I have spoken at 2 conferences over the last week. The first was the West Yorkshire SC Partnership Conference where I spoke to more than 100 providers about the future of social care for providers.

Last night I spoke at a seminar organised by Barclays Bank alongside a speaker from CQC. This was a good event with a large number of providers and others such as accountants and solicitors present.

It made me realise we must look to the future now. There is an ever increasing number of people needing care and we must look to deliver a modern service.

But... as I said last night, Government - both local and national - and the regulator cannot continue to expect more and more services unless they have money to pay.

Vetting and Barring Scheme Announcement

I wasn’t surprised to hear that the Home Office had decided to delay (?) the introduction of the Vetting and Barring Scheme but it was certainly very late in the day.

Many members will want to know what the arrangements are now with the CRB and which form etc. to use. All information is in the CRB section of the National Care Association Website.

http://www.nationalcareassociation.org.uk/crb.asp

The big question is “is the end of the Independent Safeguarding Authority?” For once I have no idea!