HERTFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL

ADULT CARE AND HEALTH SCRUTINY COMMITTEE

TUESDAY 10 MARCH 2005 AT 10.00 AM

ACCESS TO SERVICES TOPIC GROUP

Report of the Chairman of the Access to Services Topic Group

Author: Michael Francis – Head of Services Access

Tel: 01438 737313

Executive Member: David Lloyd

  1. Purpose of report

To report back to the Scrutiny Committee following the Access to Service Topic Group of Tuesday 15th February 2005.

  1. Summary

Following work undertaken in 2003 the Adult Care and Health Scrutiny Committee met and agreed to propose implementation of the Access to Service Member Topic Group’s recommendations of 3rd December 2003.

On Tuesday 15th February the Access to Service Topic Group met to consider a progress report on their initial recommendations, which have been implemented by ACS.

3.Conclusion

The Scrutiny Committee is invited to indicate whether it wishes to undertake further scrutiny of this subject and/or make any recommendations to the Council, Cabinet or Chief Officer.

The Access to Service Member Topic Group have recommended a six monthly update to be made available to members of the topic group, Adult Care and Health Scrutiny Committee and the Children, Schools and Families Scrutiny Committee, to include:

  • Number of complaints to Customer Service Centre / Client Services
  • Number of items of returned calls for Client Services / Area Teams
  • Results of quarterly NOP user satisfaction surveys
  • Report from Head of Service Access detailing ongoing issues and progress with the ten recommendations for that six month period.

It was also proposed that the Committee identify two ‘Champion’ members who could then ask for further information / ask Scrutiny to review items as necessary.

4.Background

The Access to Service Member Topic Group made 10 recommendations which were supported by the Adult Care and Health Scrutiny Committee and implemented by ACS within 2003.

These recommendations were:

1.A Customer Care Champion, should be appointedat a senior level to work alongside the CSF Head of Learner Support Services and Client Services TeamManagerto resolve the current issues and ensure effective processes are in place both at the Call Centre level and within the ACS Area Teams. This postholder’s primary role in the short term will be to ensure that cases are dealt with as quickly as possible from first point of contact to final service delivery or resolution of issue. The Champion will also work closely with PCTs and lead on the development of detailed procedures for the implementation of the Single Assessment Process and statutory performance targets.

The postholder’s key tasks will therefore be to:-

  • Ensure that all contacts are dealt with efficiently, appropriately and within the required timescales
  • Update and develop relationships between Capita (CSC) Client Services andACS Area Teams
  • Ensure that processes and procedures for liaison and communication are clearly understood and that complaints are monitored.
  • Ensure that Client Services staff are properly trained on a continuous basis, fully understand what is expected and then have the skills and knowledge to deliver against these expectations
  • Agree with ACS and CSF Boards any changes in requirements, responsibilities and authority to be given to the Client Services Team
  • Work with both Departments to develop the role played by Client Services
  • Ensure that clients accessing services through alternative routes receive consistent advice and action
  • Provide a key input to Capita staff in terms of legislative updates and ongoing refresher and induction programmes in respect of adult care services.

2.Calls from professionals on all ACS cases currently receiving social care services should be made direct to Area EPD Teams preferably either by e-mail or fax e.g.

GPs, District Nurses having issues about the client

Agencies providing the services to the client

Day Services requesting reviews of clients

3.All new referrals should continue to be made through CSC/CS and treated in the light of Single Assessment as telephone based Contact Assessments and entered on SSIS/Oracle as appropriate.

4.Calls for named workers, if unable to be put through direct, should be left as e-mails for that worker with the relevant Duty EPD Area Team. The Duty Manager of that Area Team having the task of ensuring follow-up/action taken within the agreed County Council standard response/times if the worker is not available to meet the timescale. This should then reduce the need for repeat calls by users.

5.Induction Training as required and refresher training every 4 months for both Capita and Client Services staff requiring specialist CSF/ACS input should be undertaken by appropriate HCC staff e.g. CSF staff for child protection issues, ACS staff for adult issues.

6.Monitoring of Capita/Client Services staff should be undertaken as part of a quality control process to ensure consistency in call handling.

7.In order to ensure that “backlogs” of work do not occur and that the 2004 required targets are met in full, both Client Services and operational teams require an Impact Analysis to be carried out urgently. Taking into account the effect of implementing recommendations 1 – 6 and achieving the necessary standards, the ACS Staff Review of EPD Teams should examine staffing levels and a joint ACS/CSF review be carried out on current Client Services staffing.

8.The outcome of the project detailed in Section 9 of this report using “tablet PCs” needs to be fed back to the Champion for consideration to further improve the speed and efficiency of client assessments.

  1. The following six recommendations of the Service Improvement should be implemented in full:

a.Establish a clear process for a Senior Manager in voluntary groups to sign up to a protocol to be able to access Client Services direct.

b.That ethnic access to County Council services be treated as a corporate issue not just an ACS/CSF one (the group welcomed news that Environment now had a liaison person for the CSC and felt the CSF role was a valuable one).

c.That work should be done to ensure that local community groups’ experiences should inform HCC about the best way to promote access.

d.That the corporate communications work with Black Minority Ethnic communities should include opportunity for access and obligations under the Race Relations Amendment Act to be addressed in detail.

e.That ACS should have a formal liaison with the CSC to make best use of lessons learnt from feedback from stakeholders.

f.That there should be clarity in terms of customer care about when callers can have direct access to teams to raise queries etc

10.In addition to the current route of accessing social care through the Customer Services Centre contact, Hertfordshire residents should be encouraged to use the new Resource Centres and other portals such as Herts Direct

A brief summary of the key action points and issues follows – the full report of this was presented to the Access to Service Member Topic Group on Tuesday 15th February 2005:

  • Michael Francis appointed as Head of Service Access on 17th May 2004 – working to David Robinson, ACS and Moira Swann, CSF and reporting to Sarah Pickup.
  • Over 100 staff have visited the customer service centre and Client Services since then. This has helped improved links between the customer service centre, client services and area teams.
  • Worked closely with ACS area and CSF quadrant staff.
  • Contributed to single assessment developments for ACS.
  • Arranged revised induction and ACS training for Capita staff, including expansion of information base to answer enquiries and social care refresher training.
  • Regular listening in to CSC calls is undertaken for quality monitoring purposes and users are surveyed on a quarterly basis by NOP.
  • ACS have two Quality Monitoring Officers (QMOs) who directly interview clients and discuss the service they have received – this provides invaluable feedback on staff and themes for development. Feedback from users and partner organisations is also obtained via the Service Improvement Group and BME Carers Forum and helps shape and develop our services (and performance management of individuals).
  • Backlogs of work within Client Services have been cleared and people are responded to much quicker, reducing the number of repeat calls made.
  • Area based staff are receiving training for the European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL) in order to improve ICT literacy standards, making future tablet PC pilots and implementation of new systems easier to manage.
  • Improved LanguageLine (telephone-based interpreting service) processes and training have been introduced – takeup within the CSC has increased.
  • A new textphone has been installed at the CSC and team leaders have received contextual training.

Background Papers

The report of the Head of Service Access to the Access to Service Member Topic Group is also available at the request of the Adult Health and Scrutiny Committee Members.

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