Southampton City Council’s Cabinet makes its decision on adult overnight respite care

A decision was made at a meeting of Southampton City Council’s Cabinet today to approve the recommendations around adult social care overnight respite care

Councillor Marie Finn, Cabinet Member for Adults & Health at Southampton City Council, presented a report on proposed changes to adult social care respite at Kentish Road, Rose Road and Weston Court to Cabinet on 29 April. This was after the report had been scrutinised by the council’s Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee on 24 April.

Adult Social Care respite enables carers to have a temporary break from their caring responsibilities in the knowledge that the person they care for is being supported in their absence.

The report was written by Southampton City Council officers, who had analysed the feedback from two consultations. The first was with carers and the people who used the service, and the second was opened up to the general public.

The Cabinet approved the recommendations:

• to approve an increase in the number of beds available at Kentish Road. This would ensure that the building is fully used in future.
• to deliver the majority of overnight respite from two sites, Kentish Road and Weston Court
• that Southampton City Council should deliver the service at Kentish Road and an external provider should deliver the service at Weston Court
• to undertake a review after 24 months to ensure the arrangements are operating effectively, and all services, whether internal or external, are meeting key expectations around areas such as quality and cost effectiveness.

It was also agreed that the Executive Director of Community Wellbeing, Children & Learning (DASS & DCS), Robert Henderson, would be given the authority to deliver these recommendations. This would include procuring the external provider to deliver the service at Weston Court.

In addition to the future costs of Kentish Road and Weston Court, the report contained an estimate of the costs associated with providing overnight respite for people whose needs cannot be met within these services. Southampton City Council will purchase respite care from another provider for those individuals who have complex health needs that require the delivery of specialised nursing tasks.

The figures in the report only included core respite costs and did not include the costs of additional 1:1 care which, as stated in the report, is charged separately. People would continue to receive 1:1 care if assessed as needed, regardless of where they received respite care. The figures also did not include ICB contributions for a number of joint-funded individuals currently receiving care at Rose Road.

Kentish Road already supports a number of people with more complex needs, and the team is confident, on the basis of reviewing people’s support plans, that Kentish Road would be able to meet the needs of many of the clients currently supported at Rose Road.

Councillor Marie Finn, Cabinet Member for Adults & Health at Southampton City Council, said:

"Thank you to everybody who took part in our public consultation on the future of Adult Social Care overnight respite provision at Kentish Road, Rose Road and Weston Court. This feedback was carefully considered by officers and was taken into account when creating their final report. I discussed this report with my colleagues at Southampton City Council’s Cabinet on 29 April and it was decided to accept the recommendations in the report.

"Residential overnight care remains an important part of our respite offer. However, we need to make changes to our services to ensure that we can support people in the most cost-effective way and meet increasing need. We are not proposing a reduction in the amount of overnight residential respite that we provide.

"Before any changes take place, our team will work with each individual and their family to complete a comprehensive needs-led assessment to ensure that their needs are fully met under the new arrangements

"We appreciate that some individuals will be unhappy with this decision, so we will continue to speak to the people who use the services and their families so that any concerns are addressed.

"I want to provide reassurance that we will continue to provide a high-quality service to the people who access adult overnight respite care."