Issue - meetings

A report was presented by Donna Talbot, Head of Services Business Intelligence, on the Quarterly Performance Monitoring for Quarter 1 of 2017/18.

Start Well

It was noted that the number of 1,875 Children Looked After (CLA), was the highest ever recorded for the Authority.  However, a number of initiatives would help to address this, and a report detailing these was due to be considered by the Children's Services Improvement Board. 

The proportion of care leavers in employment, education or training (EET) had reduced, although this was expected at this time of year when many children and young people were awaiting examination results and considering future options. 

The Cabinet Committee noted that recently published data from the Department for Education had suggested that the exclusion rate for Lancashire schools was higher than national, regional and statistical neighbour averages.  However, it was pointed out that some LAs did not record, as permanent exclusions, pupils who were placed in alternative provision, but removed from their mainstream school roll.  It was noted that this practice was not followed in Lancashire. 

Live Well

It was reported that there had been a low uptake of Health Checks which were available for 40-74 year olds, through a 5 year programme.  This had been due to a number of provider factors this quarter and was currently being addressed.

It was noted that representatives from NHS England had been invited to a meeting of the Health Scrutiny Steering Group on the 27^th September 2017, to discuss uptake levels of the DTaP/IPV/Hib vaccine, which protected babies against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, polio and Hib.

Age Well

An area of concern was the increased rate of admissions of people aged over 65 years into care homes.  However, much of the Passport to Independence work was already focussed on reducing these admissions, and one project was looking at the pathway from hospital discharge to short term care to long term care, and ensuring sufficient reviews were in place to offer alternative solutions. 

The Committee noted that there had been a rising trend both locally and nationally in Delayed Transfers of Care.  This system was managed by the NHS but the County Council were investing in systems and resources to ensure that data was captured consistently, to give a full understanding of causes of delay, and to facilitate strategic planning needed to reduce delays. 

It was noted that waiting times for social work assessment had improved although waits for occupational therapy (OT) assessments were often excessive and not always easy to track.  A priority was to establish more capacity and a more robustly managed OT workforce to address these concerns. 

Highlights were provided to the Committee on Development and Corporate Services and Commissioning, Governance, Finance and Public Services.

Ofsted Post Inspection Update

Richard Cooke, Programme Manager, provided a summary of the actions and activity that had been implemented to improve services that support and protect children and young people.  This update placed particular emphasis on work that had been developed to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8