***WMCA Updates***

Will you be joining our care event next week?

Preview:CQC inspections are changing, are you ready?

This is your last chance to register for our exclusive, free care event next week! 

Join us next Wednesday for the chance to hear from Citation’s associate speaker Flora Neville who’ll share expert guidance on the top issues in Health & Safety, HR and Employment Law for care businesses. Plus meet Citation’s Care Business Manager and former CQC inspector, Mick Feather who’ll cover the importance of Quality Assurance to drive a culture of safety and care for your residents. 

LAST CHANCE TO RSVP 

Events Details: 

Time: 10am – 12pm – with refreshments available throughou t 

Date: 30th November 2022 

Location: 

Eastside Rooms, Woodcock St, Birmingham B7 4BL 

SECURE YOUR SPOT 

For more information email seminars@citation.co.uk . We’re looking forward to seeing you there!

West Midlands Care Legal Services

WMCA works with West Midlands Care Legal Services to provide advice and services to the public around arranging care for a relative.

West Midlands Care Legal Services are your local estate law specialists.

These services can include topics such as:

• Powers of attorney
• Wills
• Benefits 
• Check lists for Care Homes to support residents
• Home Protection 
• Much, much more!

***Government Updates***

Adult Social Care Discharge Fund - Grant Conditions 

On Friday evening, grant conditions for the £500m Adult Social Care Discharge Fund were published . See also the letter from Minister for Care summarising the fund and grant conditions.

The conditions are focused on commissioners – and indeed, funding is being given to them not directly to providers, it would appear to be largely to their discretion how the money is used for discharge purposes. There is a particular focus on prioritising home care. 

The funding will be pooled into the Better Care Fund and divided as follows for the purposes of reducing delayed discharge: 

• £200m will be distributed to LAs, based on ASC relative needs formula 
• £300m will be distributed to Integrated Care Boards (ICBs), targeted at the areas experiencing the greatest discharge delays – see the guidance for an explanation on how this is worked out. 

Please note that the Minister’s letter also states that there will an Adult Social Care Winter Statement in the coming weeks setting out what support is available to the sector this winter. There will also be an update to the Hospital Discharge and Community support guidance to reflect new legal requirements to cooperate and involve patients and carers in discharge planning. 

At a brief glance, the fund can be used by health and LA commissioners to: 

• Enable more people to be discharged to an appropriate setting, including from mental health inpatient settings, with adequate and timely social care support as required.
• Prioritise those approaches that are most effective in freeing up the maximum number of hospital beds, and reducing the bed days lost within the funding available, to the most appropriate setting from hospital, including from mental health inpatient settings. Discharge to Assess (D2A) and provision of homecare is recognised as an effective option for discharging more people in a safe and timely manner. Residential care to meet complex health and care needs may be more appropriate for people who have been waiting to be discharged for a long time.
• Boost general adult social care workforce capacity, through staff recruitment and retention, where that will help reduce delayed discharges. This could include, but is not limited to, measures which: increase hours worked by existing workforce; improve retention of existing workforce; provide additional or redeployed capacity from current care workers; or support local recruitment initiatives. Local authorities will need to satisfy themselves that steps they take to boost workforce capacity align with their functions under the Care Act 2014, and each local authority will need to take into account any legal, employment law, equality, or tax considerations that may arise. Note that this condition is explicitly mentioned only in the grant conditions for LAs but not the guidance around ICBs - presumably, as budgets are pooled, there can be local agreement to use the ICB portion to support workforce when needed. We're working to understand this. 
• ICBs should ensure that support from the NHS for discharges into social care is available throughout the week, including at weekends

Energy Business Relief Scheme (EBRS)

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***End of government updates***

Energy Networks Association (ENA)- Be Winter Ready Campaign

The ENA has launched its Be Winter Ready Campaign . ENA is the representative body for GB's energy networks and is promoting emergency phone numbers should organisations experience a power cut or smell gas. They provide guidance and support to customers in vulnerable circumstances

Care Provider Alliance (CPA) statement on social care reform, plus report on State of Social Care and Support Provision

The CPA have now published their statement on social care reform, issued it to the trade press, and shared on Twitter: 

• The statement: ‘Social care reform cannot wait’ 
• Related tweet
  

CPA have also published their report on 'The State of Social Care and Support Provision in England' .

This has also been shared on Twitter

Care Association Alliance (CAA) and Care England VAT Webinar

The CAA and Care England will be hosting a webinar for care providers of adult social care to understand the process of VAT restructuring on:

1 December

2:00pm - 3:00pm

This is to support providers that are either considering, or asked their local authority or NHS partners to re-structure their contract to give the ability to recover input VAT

This webinar will cover:

• A walk-through of the process - covering HMRC, CQC and contractual provisions
• An opportunity for care home providers to ask questions and share concerns with leading VAT experts

Launch of The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on LD and Autism eLearning

The Health and Care Act 2022 introduced a requirement that from July 2022 regulated CQC registered service providers must ensure their staff receive training on learning disability and autism that is appropriate to their role. 

The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training aims to provide the health and care workforce with the right skills and knowledge to provide safe, compassionate and informed care to autistic people and people with a learning disability. Health Education England (HEE) and partners at DHSC, NHS England and Skills for Care have now launched the eLearning element of this training. 

The standardised training packages and the ‘train the trainer’ package for the health and social care workforce are being finalised to be available in 2023. More information here.

Get your FREE Mind Plan

Good mental health and wellbeing is important to all of us – it’s essential to living happy and healthy lives and can help us sleep better, feel better, do the things we want to do and have more positive relationships. Building our mental resilience can also help us deal with future difficulties. Everyone has different ways of coping - there is no “one size fits all” - which is why Every Mind Matters takes an individual approach to helping you look after your mental health. 

Get a free, NHS-approved, personalised Mind Plan in a way that suits you.

Next WMCA Event:

Worcestershire Registered Managers Network

2:00pm - 4:00pm

28 November 2022

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28 November 2022

CQC inspections are changing, are you ready?

30 November 2022

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Solihull Registered Managers Forum & Care Association meeting

7 December

2:00pm - 4:30pm

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