Day Services Transformation - FAQs

Background

A series of Open Meetings took place in July 2011, within the eight larger day service buildings which are to be retained as multi-purpose sites. The meetings were to explain the proposals agreed by councillors in June and answer any questions.

A total of 185 people came to the meetings; these included service users (older people, people with physical disabilities and people with learning disabilities), carers of people from all client groups and some staff from the older people attached day services which were to transfer.

At the meetings, everyone was able to:

• go on a tour of the building, to see the proposed area that would be given to services transferring in and other facilities available
• look at displays about the proposals, current/future services, consultation messages, and current activities within that day service
• meet the manager of the service and other staff, as well as project staff
• ask questions about the modernisation programme
• take away a summary of what had been agreed and dates for services to transfer into the retained buildings.

Questions raised at the meetings

How will transport work in future?

We don’t yet know how much people’s journeys on Council transport will change. A lot of planning is happening at the moment, to map what journeys will be needed to bring everyone to the future day services. In general, we hope the journey time will be shorter or the roughly the same. The Council still wants to keep to the quality standard in place now for transport, which is that 75 % of journeys are less than 45 minutes.

Drivers will have the necessary training to support all clients effectively, when people share buses.

Escorts will be provided if a risk assessment shows that the people travelling need an escort.

If the Council already arranges your transport and you pay the transport charge, this will stay the same. You won’t pay more if you have to travel further or to a different day service building.

If you don’t use Council transport now but you need to in the future, to get to a new day service building, the Council will not charge you the transport charge, because we are asking you to make this change.

Personal Budgets – how do they work?

The questions about Personal Budgets were answered individually after the general discussion. If you want to know more information about how Personal Budgets work, please try any of these options :

• speak to your Social Worker or keyworker, who can help to find out the answer

• look on the Council’s website : www.http://www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/personalbudgets

If a person didn’t want to transfer to a different Day Service building, or if they wanted to do something different during the day, the person could talk to their Social Worker about what else could be arranged. Other services could be funded instead from the Personal Budget.

New prices for day services – when will they start and how will the price be set?

The Council is introducing new prices to make it fairer across all clients. The price should depend on the level of support that a person needs, within the day service, rather than the nature of the disability that someone has.

All service users have been assessed by staff against a common format (called the matrix system) to indicate their level of need for support as being at a ‘Complex’, ‘High’, ‘Medium’ or ‘Low’ level of need.

The previous prices for day services run by the Council depended on which kind of day service people attend. These prices were for half a day :

• Older peoples services               £ 7.50

• Physical disability services         £39.00

• Mental Health services                £27.33
• Learning Disability services
  • High needs               £29.81
  • Medium needs          £18.34
  • Low needs                 £8.86

The new prices, which were due to come into effect in October 2011, will now begin in the new year. They are: 

*(A session is classed as an activity either before or after lunch).

Everyone who is already on a Personal Budget will be sent a letter in the new year to inform them what the new price of their day is. The letter will explain how this affects their Personal Budget and any contribution they will be charged in future. If an individual personal contribution changes then any overpayment will be refunded back to 1.10.11.

How will the Council decide when people who live in residential care can attend day services?  

Carers will be invited to get involved in the individual discussions that will be taking place, to sort out which days people will continue to attend their day service in future, and what will be happening on the other days of the week. The day service and the residential home will also be involved in these discussions.

Each person will have a support plan that will show what should be happening over the whole week, to support that person appropriately in their life and meet their needs. The support plan will be monitored by the Council’s review staff and will also form part of the regular monitoring of the residential home.

The number of days of day service can be increased over 2 days per week, if it is agreed that the person needs to attend more days to keep people safe and well. This will have to be included in a safeguarding plan and reviewed regularly.

Catering at the weekend: Would people still have a hot meal? 

Yes.

Would people who attend Jubilee Court from Eastwood go to Willow Wood in Sutton or Barncroft in Chilwell?

Older People who live in Eastwood will be offered an alternative day service from Barncroft in Chilwell, as this is the multi-purpose base for Broxtowe.

Will the multi-purpose buildings be big enough for all the people who need to use them in future? 

There has been a lot of discussion about which buildings need to be retained in each area, to make sure that there is enough space for everyone on any particular day.  

This is what has been considered :

• How many people have a booked place to attend on which days, in all the current services. Attendance was monitored, to see what the average number of people is, per day of the week.
• How many people do not actually attend on any particular day (also called occupancy levels).
• How many places per day will be required in the future.
• How much physical space there is in the retained buildings and how much room is available for service users. 
• Travelling times in the more rural districts

 Taking all of this into account, the Council is confident that there will be enough space (see next table).

Some days will be busier than others. These figures show average attendance.

What building works will be happening, and when? 

Building work is needed in most of the Day Service buildings that the Council will keep, depending on their age and how much work has been done in the past. The type of work includes:

• general repairs and upgrades (eg. to heating, electrical systems, windows)
• changes to walls eg. to widen corridors or create 2 rooms out of 1
• improvements to toilet areas and reception
• development of coffee bars where necessary, and other social relaxation or quiet areas
• improvements to security arrangements, including outside as well as inside

Information about the dates for works is being finalised at the moment. We will try to keep disruption to a minimum but where more significant works are needed, people may need to change their day service building for a while.

The plans will be shared for information, when available. There will be a short period of time when people can make comments on the plans.

Will there be more activities to do in day services?

We are confident that when all service users and staff have moved into the multi-purpose buildings, it will be possible to coordinate the activities more effectively within the building, so that people from across the client groups can join in, if they want to.

Also, some staff are specialists in areas such as drama, music, arts and crafts, and exercise. In the future, these staff will be able to work with all the clients attached to the day service, rather than just with their current client group.

Ongoing communication with us: How will this work?

We will keep you informed by:

• sending out regular updates about the process
• posting information at: www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/dayservicestransformation
• writing letters to people about issues that directly affect them
• sharing information at meetings or on notice-boards in the day services
• answering questions directly if people want to call Wendy Lippmann: tel 0115 9773971 or email ask.dayservicereview@nottscc.gov.uk
• asking people what they think, through the service user forums, when changes have happened