Shropshire Council recognised for embracing the preventative vision of the Care Act

Shropshire Council has been recognised for embracing the preventative vision of the Care Act, as part of a report issued by West Midlands ADASS and Improvement and Efficiency West Midlands.

It is one of six councils in the West Midlands, all of which have developed their own approaches to prevention and the way they support their local communities, to be showcased in the report “Inside out and upside down: Community based approaches to social care prevention in a time of austerity“.

The report draws out some of the themes that are emerging from these approaches and highlights some of the common factors that have been seen to be successful in both reducing costs and encouraging partnership working.

Stephen Chandler, Shropshire Council’s director of adult social care, said:

“We’re pleased that our continual work to enable some of the county’s most vulnerable people to get help sooner and support them to be more independent within their own community has been recognised.

“Our journey started a few years ago with the creation of our strategy ‘Live Life Your Way’ and the development of an alternative approach to Social Work Practice through ‘People2People’.

“We are now really starting to see positive results. Our success is not just down to one thing that we’ve done, and I can honestly say that it wouldn’t have been possible without everyone working together.

“We have worked with People2People and ip&e Business Design to create a new narrative with our partners, as well as involve the people who use our services. It’s all part of our vision to put people at the very heart of what we do.

“It’s stood us in good stead for the implementation of the Care Act and many people living in Shropshire will see little change in the excellent support and services they receive.”

As well as the roll-out of People2People across the county, a key part of the journey has included improving the way the council’s customer service centre operators (known as ‘First Point of Contact’) deal with people’s initial enquiry.

The operators have been trained to be able to do a basic assessment over the phone straightaway. People are then supported according to their needs, whether this be an invite to a Let’s Talk Local session, a visit from a social worker, or signposted to another organisation who can arrange the right type of care.

Stephen added:

“We, alongside other councils, face many challenges over the coming months and years. Financial pressures are particularly prevalent in adult social care, as our county’s population gets older and the demand for our services increases.

“Despite this, we are very proud of what we have achieved so far and recognise the value in sharing these and learning along the way.”

Shropshire Council’s preventative work has also been mentioned in The Guardian. Read the story here.

An honest account of the council’s work over the last year, through the eyes of its customers, their carers, staff and partners can be found in its most recent local account called “Making it Real in Shropshire: our story so far”.

The business design arm of ip&e Limited, the council-owned company, worked closely with adult social care to create the environment for this change to happen.