Agenda item
COVID-19 CARE ACT EASEMENTS - PRESENTATION
- Meeting of Online 'Virtual' Meeting, Health & Adults Scrutiny Sub-Committee, Tuesday, 1st December, 2020 6.30 p.m. (Item 4.)
- View the background to item 4.
Minutes:
The Sub-Committee received a presentation in respect of the Care Act easements guidance that:
- Outlined how Tower Hamlets can use the new Care Act easements, created under the Coronavirus Act 2020, to ensure the best possible care for people in our society during the COVID-19 pandemic; and
- Provided further details on the purpose of the Care Act easements and when to use it; and
- Details on steps that Tower Hamlets is taking to ensure there is no need to put in place Care Act easements in the Borough.
The main points of the discussion maybe summarised below:
The Sub-Committee noted that
- It is an absolute priority for LBTH to make sure that those that need support and those that contact the Council received that support in a timely way.
- LBTH work on a risk-based response mechanism and now officers are developing an approach so that the Council have consistency and monitor waiting lists.
- Any issues arising from this process should be drawn to the attention of the relevant officers
- There have been issues regarding apparent delays in assessments by the Occupational Therapy (OT) Team and the impact that this this has had on everyday activities; quality of life and the independence of those affected. In response it was noted that based on current trends, demand for the Service has outpaced the supply of occupational therapists nationally. The Team have accordingly undertaken a recruitment campaign and have been successful in recruiting a number occupational therapists that should help to address the waiting for equipment or adaptations.
- The Team are also having conversations with adult social care and care providers to understand their perspective of the service.
- The Service ensures that they respect and protect their client’s human rights when providing their services and have provided some learning and development session for their workforce on assessing against human rights violations. This has been done in partnership with the Councils legal team and with guidance published on the Councils Adult Social Care internal intranet pages where staff can find a list of resources to access alongside the guidance around human rights violations. Therefore, should LBTH find itself in a circumstance where officers need to undertake an assessment under Care Act easements they would have that information at hand and be able to understand how many people had been assessed as having had a human rights violation.
- The following rights being the most relevant when you receive health or care services (i) article 8 - the right to respect for private and family life; (ii) article 3 - the right not to be tortured or treated in an inhuman or degrading way; and (iii) article 2 - the right to life.
- The Service needs to understand from a case law perspective where the boundary is in terms of whether breaches are evident and obviously they would work very closely with the legal team in those situations where it was more of a challenge to agree a formal decision. However, what the Service has done is make sure that they have equipped their workforce as much information as possible to be able to respond appropriately and provide them with the relevant reference tools.
- Those undertaking Care Act statutory assessments would be qualified professionals who are trained in such work.
- The Service are working to ensure there is no need to put in place Care Act easements in the Borough.
The Chair Moved and it was: -
RESOLVED to note the presentation.
Supporting documents:
- ITEM 4 (1) Care Act easments, item 4. PDF 267 KB
- ITEM 4 (2) HOSC Slides_easements (002)..., item 4. PDF 280 KB