Agenda item

The Board will receive a presentation outlining the strategy for Older People’s Accommodation.

Officer: Karen Jones, Senior Project Manager Business Change

The Board received a presentation from Karen Jones, Senior Project Manager – Business Change, outlining the strategy for the Help to Live at Home scheme.

The Council has produced a 10 year development strategy, modelled across two timeline options, which will modernise the way that older people’s accommodation is provided, develop and adopt an integrated accommodation system, ensure the best use of increasingly scarce resources and respond to local needs in local communities. 

The number of older people within south west Wiltshire is set to increase by 36% by 2026. The number of people with dementia in this area is also set to increase by 53% by 2025.

The capital cost of the proposed development programme, including extra care, nursing and specialist dementia care provision, is approximately £220m based on current prices.  Under these proposals the Council does not anticipate funding developments directly and will be working to maximise investment from the private and voluntary sectors.  An innovative joint procurement exercise with Devon County Council is also being progressed in an attempt to reduce future Social Housing Grant requirements for extra care developments by accessing potential cross-subsidisation of schemes through the inclusion of Council owned land.

The proposed development strategy and service remodelling would enable the Council to realise a cost avoidance of approximately £600m over the next 25 years when compared to the “do nothing” option.  This will assist the Council to offset the challenges of the forecast demographic change of older people and is achieved through a diversion of people from residential care to community support or specialist nursing or dementia care, which achieves an average saving per person of £44 per week. 

Proposed Developments in South West Wiltshire are:

·       A 45 unit extra care scheme to meet nursing needs in Mere – A site for this development is still to be determined.

• A Community extra care scheme in Tisbury.
• Timescale – Tisbury should be operational within the next 2 years and Mere between 2016 and 2018.

The development strategy will be delivered through a variety of partnerships, contractual arrangements and funding opportunities.  These include:

• A long-term partnering agreement with The Orders of St John Care Trust, who currently operate the Council’s care homes for older people, which recognises the need for developments and / or significant refurbishments due to the ageing nature of the existing facilities.
• The Department of Health Private Finance Initiative through which the Council has been provisionally allocated £49.687m to deliver specialist dementia care and nursing facilities in the south and north of the county.
• An innovative Preferred Developer Partner Framework agreement which is being jointly procured with Devon County Council to facilitate the development of extra care housing with little or no requirement for public subsidy i.e. Social Housing Grant, due to the potential cross subsidisation of facilities through the inclusion of Council owned land.
• A review of the sheltered housing stock to assess the quality of accommodation and its ability to meet current and future needs.  Facilities may be recommended for refurbishment to provide community extra care housing or to meet other Council priorities i.e. the provision of affordable general needs accommodation.
• Utilising private sector and Registered Social Landlord (RSL) initiatives which may reduce the requirement for Council led developments in particular community areas.

Questions and Comments were then taken, these included:

·       These plans are assuming that there will be no further financial cuts. Answer: There is no other alternative than to look after people, the new strategy is a more effective way of providing the services that are needed.

·       Can you explain how the two different factors that you are using marry up. Answer: The 36% is the increase in population in the South West community area, the other figure is the number of units to be delivered.

·       Wilton is not mentioned in the presentation, is anything planned for that area? Answer: There are a number of sites in Salisbury and Old Sarum which would meet the needs for the Wilton area.

·       Are there plans for who will run/operate these homes? Answer: The Council has not operated any owned home since its care home stock was transferred over in 2007. Care in the homes is contracted and monitored.

·       How do you go about finding a property for Mere? Answer: The Property Officers have been asked to assess if there is any suitable Council owned land, if that fails we would approach partners, if that did not establish a suitable site then we would advertise in the local community.

·       How is the strategy based, is it by the need in the area? Answer: Yes the Strategy is based on need, Mere is very low compared to the rest of Wiltshire for its elderly population.

·       There are some parishes like the Donheads which are very close to Shaftesbury, are there cross boarder arrangements? Answer: We are able to purchase cross boundary beds if required.