COUNCILS which are pulling back from an agreement to pool care budgets with the NHS in Gwent could set up a new partnership.
The area’s five local authorities and the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board have had an agreement which has allowed them to share a budget for health and social care to support people living with frailty, such as the elderly who require care at home, since 2011.
But councils requested a review last year which has led to Monmouthshire and Caerphilly giving notice they would withdraw from the arrangement.
Torfaen Borough Council’s Labour cabinet met in a special 20-minute meeting at the Civic Centre in Pontypool on Wednesday, March 18, where it unanimously approved a recommendation from strategic director Jason O’Brien to also pull out of what is known as the Section 33 agreement.
Alternative arrangements
But Mr O’Brien said the council will give 12 months’ notice it intends to do so on March 31 giving it, the other councils and the health board time to prepare alternative arrangements which will be discussed through the regional partnership board which brings all the organisations together.
Stephen Vickers, joint chief executive of both councils, said Torfaen and Blaenau Gwent, which have a shared adult social services directorate under their federation model, are already in talks with the health board over the future service, which he said could also involve the other councils.
“That could operate more widely across Gwent should the other local authorities want to follow. It’s very early days but we’ll take those conversations forward,” said Mr Vickers.
Torfaen’s Labour leader Anthony Hunt said the care people receive is more important to them than the governance arrangements behind it but the Panteg councillor also asked if the new service would be an opportunity for more care to be provided by staff directly employed by the council.
He said that is “better” for the workforce and those receiving care.
‘Urgent care pathway’
Mr Vickers said that was “certainly” so for staff in the “urgent care pathway” and said rehabilitation and reablement services, intended to support people to live independently at home, needs to be invested in and “is the kind of offer we ourselves would want to deliver.”
He described that, and “getting people out of hospital more swiftly” as “the acute end of our business” and said: “All of that serves us well, supporting people at home, in preventing them coming into the long term part of our system which we know once people are there it’s very difficult for them to move away from.”
The cabinet was told Newport City Council was also due to consider giving notice to withdraw from the existing partnership at a meeting on March 18 with the recommendation going before Blaenau Gwent’s cabinet next week.