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Agenda item

Agenda item

Adults, Health and Integration Directorate Risk Register

Meeting of Audit Committee, Wednesday 21 June 2023 6.30 pm (Item 7.)

Decision:

RESOLVED: The Audit Committee to note the contents of this report, the attached risk registers and controls in place.

Minutes:

7.1 The Director Adult Social Care & Operations highlighted the key risks from the report, which included;

· access to sexual health services: reflecting that demand for services had increased, resulting in challenges to provide appointments and clinician availability. This had been mitigated by the development of a draft strategy on sexual health access and provision.

· the impact of the cyberattack on Adult Services: Mosaic had been recovered in the last year, but there was ongoing work to ensure the system was safe and effective.

· growing demand for care: there had been an increase of approximately 30% in those needing long-term support needs compared to before the Covid pandemic. This meant there was insufficient budget to provide a statutory service. Work was underway to mitigate the risk without impacting the care and support that residents received.

· sustainability of the market: The Council worked with a small market of providers and was working to ensure providers did not hand back contracts as had been seen in other areas. This was being mitigated by maintaining good relationships and paying fair, but affordable rate for care.

· recruitment within the social care workforce: this had been mitigated by the appointment of a Principal Social Worker, and the analysis of how the Directorate retained and recruited staff and the culture of work, in order to attract the right calibre of staff.

7.2 Members of the committee asked whether placements within the Borough could be provided through the Council’s capital build programme; why there was a risk of substance misuse grant monies not being spent; whether there could be any further consideration of insourcing; inequality of access to services; in relation to recruitment and retention, what had been learned from exit interviews; and, about plans to deal with future pandemics and vaccine hesitancy.

7.3 The Director Adult Social Care & Operations responded and highlighted that;

· the capital build programme had focused on ensuring there was adequate accommodation options, particularly supported living, but had not included residential or nursing care. However a business case was being developed and would be brought back to the Health in Hackney Scrutiny Commission.

· the City & Hackney Combating Drugs Partnership has been developed and work was underway to ensure all allocated grant monies would be spent.

· social care commissioning was a large financial pressure, and insourcing care would come at a higher cost to the Council and would lead to an increase in the Adult Social Care (ASC) budget.

· A significant piece of work had been completed in 2022 with exit interviews and interviews with existing staff to understand why individuals remained as agency staff and why some staff had stayed in Hackney. The work confirmed that for agency staff wage had been a driver, and working environment and organisational culture had been more important.

ACTION: 3. The Director Adult Social Care & Operations to arrange for relevant Committee members to receive answers for questions relating to Public Health.

RESOLVED: The Audit Committee to note the contents of the report, the risk register, and controls in place.

Supporting documents: