Our commitment to putting people first from the

Gateshead Personalisation Partnership

We will recognise that giving people more choice and control starts with us.

We will continue to build on the experience and skills of staff and other organisations in Gateshead to embed an approach that puts people first.

We will improve our systems, processes, services and ways of support so that ‘choice and control’ offers a real choice.

We will make the best use of our resources and money by working efficiently, developing creative solutions and being accountable for what we do.

We will continue to ensure protection or support will be available to those who need it.

We will continue to ensure good quality support and care as a core part of all of our work

We will work together to deliver the changes, celebrate what works well and reflect on our mistakes to develop confidence in our new ways of working.

Our aspiration is for 100% of people who need help from adult social care to receive a personal budget

Our Milestones for 2009/2010

We will develop a personal assessment

We will develop options for changes to roles and structures to allow new ways of working

We will work with service providers to understand what we need to change about how we deliver services

We will ensure people who use services and their carers are equal partners in the future delivery of our plans

By April 2010, 10% of people eligible for social care will receive a personal budget

Progress Report:

The self assessment phase of our personal assessment project is on target for November 2009. The virtual team – who are representatives of social care workers in all of our adult care assessment teams – will continue to help and we also welcome two social care assessment teams who have volunteered to be ‘spearhead’ teams. Thank you to all of the virtual team, and particularly the team managers Anne Corbett and Carol Newbrook for all your hard work.

The initial consultation on the options appraisal has been completed. Over 60 people attended over the 3 events. The workforce development team are collating the information for new ways of working and will be feeding back shortly.

Planning for a development day for the user and carer involvement forum is well underway and planned for later in November.

We have successfully appointed the Social Work Co-operative as consultants to deliver our ‘Mapping the Market’ project. They will be contacting service providers and voluntary organisations shortly and be holding an event on 17^th November.

The self directed support team have begun to test new processes which include new letters of agreement, which aim to simplify the monitoring arrangements for people who choose to use their personal budget themselves, to arrange support that they need. Veronica McHugh, the manager of the team, says ‘I am really excited about the future with personal budgets. I will be monitoring our new processes closely to make sure that they make it easier for people who chose to take their personal budget to arrange care for themselves, through taking up a direct payment.’

We are progressing quickly with our plans to roll out personal budgets. Our Resource Allocation System has been developed thanks to the hard work of Joanne Wilson, Phil Harding and Clare Morton in our financial team. We will be testing this further from November to March and hope to exceed our target of 10%.

Satisfaction Survey

We asked people who had been involved in the individual budget pilot about their experiences. 92% of people who replied said that their quality of life was better and 91% said that they had more choice and control about the support that they needed.

North East England map Regional Roundup:

We are really excited that Gateshead will be part of the regional change management project. A small cohort of volunteers from voluntary organisations, representatives from people who use services and their carers and social care will be working together on our theme of ‘increasing the uptake of direct payments with older people’.

Events and Activities

Ø A seminar on the legal aspects of personalisation has been organised with our legal team on 1^st December. To book a place please contact Claire Bainbridge on 433 2484.

Ø The personalisation game and training toolkit ‘Whose Shoe’s is available to use for team development days, workshops or conferences to help you spread the word. Contact Claire Bainbridge to book it out.

Ø The first in the series of Fact Sheets titled ‘Putting you first in Gateshead’ focus on people wanting to employ their own personal assistant

Ø Training and development for social care managers on leading people through change and for social care staff on self directed support will be advertised shortly.

Ø The ‘Leading People through Change’ programme for team managers in Gateshead adult social care will be starting in November. This will be delivered as part of the Workforce Development Project.

Peer Mentoring

The contract for the peer mentoring project, with economic development has been provisionally awarded to the Sight Service working in partnership with Age Concern Gateshead. The project will host the development of a social enterprise offering peer mentoring for people with personal budgets.

Making Progress with Putting People First

In September ADASS and the LGA, supported by the Department of Health, published a series of milestones to help councils check they are delivering transformed services and supports. Gateshead personalisation programme has used this to develop our own milestones and will be using these to report on our progress. For more information on the national milestones you can log onto: www.dhcarenetworks.org.uk/Personalisation