As you may have seen in our May edition of Carers Connected, Suffolk County Council (SCC) is embarking on a widespread change in how they deliver Adult Social Care services. The primary aim of this change is to provide better support for people with increasingly complex needs, allowing them to maintain their independence and live good lives, with the right support and People At The Heart Of Care.
People At The Heart Of Care is a new approach created around several core values but is based on the simple idea that people should be at the centre of their own care and support, choices, and decisions. It will involve changes to every part of a person’s journey with Adult Social Care including; early advice and guidance, the way assessments are processed and the ability to self-commission support via direct payments and individual service funds. It also involves Suffolk County Council working closely with its health partners to bring the benefits of closer health and social care integration, and expand Suffolk’s use of new care-based technology to support people to live independently for longer.
To ensure these changes are right for everybody Suffolk County Council will be holding the following consultation events to hear the views of family carers and the people they care for.
- Bury St. Edmunds – 25th June 10:30 – 12:30 at BSE Library, in the Conference Room
- Ipswich – 27th June 14:30 – 16:30 at Gainsborough Library, in the Community Room
- Lowestoft – 2nd July 09:30 – 11:30 at Kirkley Centre, in the Suffolk Suite.
- Online – July 3rd 09:30 – 11:30 via MS Teams. Link to follow
At Suffolk Family Carers we are pleased that the important voice of family carers is recognised and included in these discussions from the outset. We would therefore like to invite you to these events on behalf of Suffolk County Council. This will help ensure your needs are met, as well as those of the person you care for. Each session is expected to broadly cover the following structure
- Overview of the session (5 mins)
- Ambition of People at the heart of Care (15 mins)
- Questions & discussion (15 mins) on the topic of “Help to help yourself: boosting the advice and guidance available to people”
- Break
- Questions & discussion (40 mins) on the topics of “Help when you need it: helping people to stay independent for longer with the right immediate short-term support” and “Ongoing support for those who need it: empowering people, and their families, to have more control over their long-term care and support choices”
- Feedback (10 mins)
- Wrap up & next steps (15 mins)
Your feedback from these sessions will help shape how Adult Social Carer works to support Suffolk’s people in the future, so if you are interested attending please help SCC manage numbers by completing our short expression of interest form below
In the meantime if you would like to know more you can visit the People At The Heart Of Care website
