Local Authorities and County Councils under pressure to respond to the Personalisation Agenda
August 11, 2009
Government requirements continue to place pressure on Local Authority and County Councils to deliver the ‘Putting People First Agenda’ as embodied in the Personalisation. Whilst steady progress has been made by many authoritities only a fraction of service users have actually taken up the option of controlling their assessed budget needs for social care services. It will be interesting over the next two year period to see how Local Authority and County Council Organisations respond to meeting this agenda as Government requirements for an increased allocation of their spend to be allocated to the Personalisation agenda. In turn this may well impact on the quality rating of a number of Councils who are slow to act.
The Personalisation agenda is seeing a drive towards service users controlling their budget allocations and having geniuine choice in the services they decide to purchase. The advent of the Personal Assistant market which will allow service users to become their own employers is in its infancy and may need some encouragement to offer real choice to service users. Likewise the advent of many of the websites offering virtual reality shopping malls of services are now beginning to mushroom in the new technological age we live.
A continued drive towards self determination of the service user will continue over the coming years with the role of professional social care staff increasingly coming under review as the boundaries between the professional and the service user change – the arrival of the such phrases as ‘co-production’ in the social care jargon highlight the equality of relationship emerging as the Service User looks to take control over their service needs.
On a wider scale and work CHS is well placed to support is the need of many Council Adult Social Care Departments to externalise existing services either through market tender or the use of a Trading Company model, develop further the roll out of Personalisation, and re-modelling of in-house domiciliary care services to deliver reablement. All these elements will be critical in the reshaping of services offered to meet the Government Agenda.
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