AGENDA ITEM 9

Paper for Joint Commissioning Group - Adult

Subject: Commissioning Update

Progress with Current Priorities:

Redesign

Further detail of the re-design was presented to the Safer Sunderland Partnership Board on 29th July 2012. Following this, the board has agreed that the re-design work should go ahead. However, it was made clear that this work should be brought to the attention of the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) as soon as possible.

The CCG has been briefed and requested that we keep them informed as redesign work is formalised and present relevant papers to their board.

Additionally, linkage has now been made with the procurement team at Sunderland City Council with a view to utilising their services during the process.

Single Shared Assessment (SSA)

The Task & Finish Group for the Single Shared Assessment have now drafted a vision, principles underpinning, a partnership agreement for and the first draft of the SSA tool which is currently being formatted. This will be refined by the group and then go out for consultation to a service user focus group, service providers and staff for final comments and amendments in mid October.

The tool will be used by all non-statutory drug & alcohol services and include the FACE risk assessment tool. It has been agreed that this will be an holistic assessment of need, will ask what outcomes individuals are seeking right at the start of the process so that needs can be prioritised and individuals can be signposted correctly if they do not want treatment – therefore they need not sit through a full assessment if it is not ultimately required. We are also looking at re-presentation criteria and when it is appropriate to fully re-assess an individual. It will be piloted as a paper based tool which will then be faxed or scanned and emailed to support services that an individual wishes to be referred into.

We are also working up the guidelines for use of the tool and developing the workforce development plan to ensure that it is implemented and utilised effectively. Full implementation of the training and workforce development required to most effectively use the tool will delay system wide pilot use of the tool to early 2012 though testing can be carried out in the intervening months.

As it is an holistic assessment of need we are liaising with partners such as Children’s services, Mental Health/Dual Diagnosis leads and Young People’s services regarding question sets, pathways and work force development.

Hi Website

Hiwecanhelp.com has now been widely promoted and this has resulted in the greatest number of hits from the general public in the first year of membership of all Hi member sites. Coca ethylene awareness has been raised throughout Sunderland using the tool and a Synthetic Highs awareness campaign was launched at the first Sunderland Pride event on Sunday 25th September.

Service User Involvement

NERAF are now providing peer mentoring support for both drugs & alcohol clients. Though we still do not have an independent SU Involvement post for Sunderland we will continue to consult with service users on developments such as the redesign, IOM review and SSA by use of Focus groups and representation at workshops.

Hidden Harm

The Hidden Harm co-ordinator post has now been filled and is tasked with taking forward the main actions from the strategy. The post-holder is currently further strengthening links and pathways with Children’s Services and it is hoped that the Hidden Harm Virtual team will be reinvigorated during October 2011.

Successful Completions

We have established a Task & Finish Group to address successful completions and TOP tracking and to look at developing exception reporting for the partnership. This will allow us to gain a better understanding of the movement of clients through the system and key points of attrition.

The commissioning team have incorporated additional fields to the contract monitoring proformas to formally record and gain a clearer picture of issues such as referral routes being used, the movement of clients through the system and re-engagement activity.

Ben Seale / Nicola Grainger / Sarah Fox

September 2011

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