Decision details

Agreed that:
The Cabinet Member for Adult Health and Social Care approved the proposed changes to the staffing of Community Alarms and changes to the working rotas of the service.

The Director of Adult Social Care to also approve the proposed changes to the staffing of Community Alarms and changes to the working rotas of the service.

Sandwell Community Alarms provide a wide range of equipment through technology, emergency alarms, pendants and fall detectors/packages to citizens of Sandwell to enable them to live independently in the community. The service helps people lead fuller and more independent lives. This is a critical 7-day service, 24 hours per day.

The service forms a key part of the Integrated Discharge Hub and plays a vital role in ensuring people can be discharged from hospital as soon as they are medically optimised. The service continued to operate throughout the pandemic to meet increasing demand.

Discharge to Assess (D2A) is the nationally accepted process for supporting people to leave hospital following an admission and then assessing if, or what support people may need to avoid readmittance. There are 4 identified pathways. The main focus of all hospital discharges is for the person to return to a place they identify as their home. Most people leave hospital with no need for ongoing support, this is pathway 0. If people return to their home but do require some short term or longer-term support to stabalise or maintain their home life, this is referred to as pathway 1. Pathway 2 is short term bed based re-ablement with a view to going home, pathway 3 is where people leave hospital and require on-going support in residential or nursing care.

The Pathway 1 D2A process in Sandwell has seen a significant improvement in timeliness of discharges from commencement of the D2A model to date.

Further development of the D2A process requires the council to strategically plan for the increase in pressures and responsibilities for Pathway 1 discharges as the idea of ‘Home First’ becomes more embedded.

Community Alarms has been an area that has been previously under resourced, however one that has continued to adapt to new and unfamiliar ways of working. The demand on the service they deliver has reached unprecedented levels from the combined impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, winter pressures, increased 999 ambulance delays and reduced staffing capacity. The ongoing limited resource makes it increasingly difficult to fully adhere to 24/7 rota cover.

Community Alarms receive in excess of 16,000 calls per month from customers who press their community alarm and approximately 230 of these calls requests a physical emergency response, where officers respond and support to lift following non-injurious falls.

The new operating model:-

• 7-day working rota (Appendix 4), 07:00 to 19:10 hours and 19:00 to 07:10 hours, working 3 shifts per week.

• This will increase the Community Alarms Officer current hours from 28 hours per week to 35 hours per week.

• There will be a further 2 posts working a 4 on 4 off pattern 09.30 to 18:00 hours and 22:00 to 06:30 hours.

• There will be 5 Community Alarm Officers on each shift, further enhancing our responses to falls within the Borough.

To maintain an efficient and effective service provision there are no alternative options currently available, therefore approval was sought for the above recommendations.