Agenda item

A special focus on listening to older people about the activities and services they value and what they would like to see in South West Wiltshire.

The workshop will also seek to find out from older people what they think about the services there are in their communities to support older people to stay at home.

Officer: Nicola Gregson, Head of Commissioning for Older People Care, Support and Accommodation.

Steve Harris, Community Area Manager welcomed everyone to the special themed event of the South West Wiltshire Area Board, focusing on Services for Older People.

David Bowater, Corporate Support Manager, gave an introduction to the draft Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2015-18, which had been circulated at the event. The aim was for everyone in Wiltshire to live healthy lives and to have the support they needed as individuals.

It was recognised that preventative activities were critically important. When people get ill, the NHS and Social Care services needed to work together seamlessly to change the way health and care services were delivered in Wiltshire.

Integrated care teams were a key part of the Health and Wellbeing Strategy. There would be a phased approach, including:

2015

·       Develop housing strategy

·       Update obesity strategy

·       Implement  child poverty strategy

2016

·       New suicide and self-harm strategy

·       Update falls and bones strategy

2017

·       Revise early help strategy

Feedback on the Draft Health and Wellbeing Strategy was sought, people  could fill in a copy of the feedback form circulated at the meeting, paper copies could also be obtained by contacting David Bowater 01225 713978 David.Bowater@wiltshire.gov.uk 

Download a copy of the draft strategy at: www.wiltshire.gov.uk or www.wiltshire.nhs.uk

Workshop

Nicola Gregson, Head of Commissioning for Older People Care, Support and Accommodation opened the workshop which was aimed at finding out from older people what they thought about the services there were in their communities, to enable older people to stay at home.

Because so many older people were unaware of what services were out there, a booklet had been produced called ‘Life is for Living’ containing a whole range of useful information. Copies of the booklet were circulated at the meeting.

People were asked to split into groups around three tables, where they were able to discuss the following questions in their groups:

·       What do you like doing?

·       What would you like to do and what’s stopping you from doing what you would like to do?

·       Who do you think would be a good older people’s champion?

·       Who do you think would be a good carer’s champion?

Following discussion, the groups were asked to feedback a couple of key answers each. Nicola compiled a list of these which would be used to produce a report on priorities for the area and what steps were proposed to make them happen. The report and any nominations for Champions would be presented to the Area Board.

Question

The Chairman commented that it was very well identifying older people in the community who they felt had problems, but how do you know if those people were already receiving assistance, if they were living in isolation?

There was a programme running at present where GP’s were identifying people with early signs of dementia. Wiltshire Council and dementia friendly communities were finding ways to have the conversation with vulnerable people in the community.

Cllr Deane added that the Good Neighbour Scheme was a valuable asset for the community, but who should they report back to and how do we then feedback to them that something has been done.

He added that it was important for the carers to be located near the clients rather than having to travel from Swindon to Tisbury to give care to someone.