Adult social care directorate plan

Our Directorate Plan sets out our priorities for supporting adults in the city to live the lives they want to live. We do this by promoting independence, drawing on strengths, improving wellbeing, and keeping people safe.  

The plan describes:

• what we do 
• information about our workforce
• our vision
• our priorities
• our resources
• our communications
• our performance
• the risks and opportunities we face

You can read the full plan or view our plan on a page at the links below:

• Directorate Plan
• Plan on a page

What we do

All our teams work together to ensure adults in the city are safe, supported, and can live a fulfilling independent life, while preventing, reducing, and delaying need.

Through our focus on building people’s assets, we work closely with partners to look at a person in their whole context. Where we can, we seek to prevent need by listening to what the person wants and providing proactive responses like information and advice, and linking them into community based groups.

We receive approximately 9500 new requests for support each year, support approximately 5000 people with long term care needs, support approximately 1500 people with short term care needs, and support approximately 2000 unpaid carers.

Our workforce

Newcastle is a great place to work in adult social care and the approximately 9600 people working in the sector in the city are our biggest strength. 

Their knowledge, resilience, and focus on getting the best results for individuals has been the driving force behind the quality of our services, our ability to transform, and our innovative partnership working.

To support a strong local workforce we are:
 

• Developing our Health and Social Care Academy to make it easier to bring people into roles in social care and to match them with great jobs
• Developing our Health and Social Care Apprenticeships to create more exciting roles which give people an opportunity to work across the whole system
• Leading on local recruitment campaigns which are joined up with neighbouring authorities to show people that social care is a great career and encourage them to join
• Investing in the wellbeing of our workforce through a comprehensive employee support programme and negotiating access to NHS benefits for our frontline social care workforce.

All of this has meant that our latest Social Work Health Check shows that our workforce feels supported and valued, while adult social care continues to make a £318m gross value-added contribution to the city.

Vision

Our vision is to be a healthy, caring city for all. To achieve this, we want to support people to live the lives they want to live by fostering thriving communities, promoting independence, prioritising wellbeing, and keeping people safe from harm.
 

We are doing this by embedding 'asset based community development' principles throughout all our work. Asset based community development is an approach to working alongside communities to build on the strengths and assets that already exist, creating strong neighbourhoods where people can remain well and connected.

We are embedding these principles in the way we support people, through to how we design and commission services, and how we work with local communities and voluntary groups.

Priorities

Newcastle Neighbourhoods
This priority is all about working alongside people in their own neighbourhoods. It means investing in the assets that already exist in an area, whether they be physical assets like community buildings, or assets like community groups and networks.

Three Conversations approach to social work
Our three conversations approach builds on the strength of our neighbourhoods, and the strengths that people have in their own lives. We will have much more person-centred and flexible conversations with people who may benefit from care or support.

Digital
We recognise the huge potential that digital provides, both for individuals to have choice and control over their care and support, and to enable their independence, but also in supporting our workforce with more efficient tools and data-driven insights that can learn from and inform practice.

Hearing the voice of local people
What people tell us about their care and support and what they would like to see is crucial to being able to deliver our ambitions. We will develop a co-production strategy over the coming year, setting out our approach to co-production, as well as how and when we will engage and consult.

Financial inclusion
We know financial inequality has been a growing issue in our society and this is being made worse by the recent cost of living crisis. Through working in new ways with community partners and through the Council’s Anti-Poverty Strategy, we want to make sure everyone has the financial security they need to live a healthy life.

Resources

The majority of our resources are spent on support for people with a learning disability, autism, or both, and support for older people. Wherever possible, we support people to continue living in their own homes.

During 2021/22, we invested £41.4m of this funding in the voluntary and community sector, and 69% of this was kept in the North East.

24% of our funding comes from short-term funding sources i.e. sources that are for one-off projects or are not committed for more than 12 months. We continue to lobby government to make funding for adult social care more sustainable and longer-term.

Communications

The way we communicate with people, politicians, colleagues and partners is crucial to effective delivery and the development of trust in the support that we provide.

Our plan is underpinned by several core building blocks:

• Colleague briefings, newsletters, and surveys
• Member newsletters and briefings
• Provider newsletters and forums
• Information Now
• Social media
• Council website
• Letters
• Direct conversations with people

Performance

There are a number of ways that we report on our performance, including statutory returns which we report on in our Local Account each year. 

We are preparing for changes to the statutory measures we report on with the move to client level reporting during 2023-24.
 

We know we currently perform well in areas such as:

• Supporting people with learning disabilities and/ or autism to draw on support in their own homes
• Helping to reduce short-term needs and enable people to live independently for longer
• Keeping people out of residential care and promoting their independence

Risks and opportunities

We are at a critical point for adult social care. Long-term funding reductions, coupled with population increases, increasing inflation, and pressures in the workforce have come together to create a difficult picture for authorities, providers, the workforce, and people alike. 

Below are some of the key risks and opportunities facing the directorate.

• Lack of sustainable funding
• Increased population growth
• Lack of workforce availability
• Serious provider failure

While times remain difficult, there are still opportunities for adult social care and the wider health system to consider over the coming year.

• Expansion of the combined authority
• Integrated Care System development
• Workforce innovation
• Professionalisation of the workforce
   

We work closely with colleagues, partners, and providers to plan for and mitigate the risks we face while also planning to make the most of the available opportunities for the city.