Contact: Frances Martin, Community Strategy Officer Ext: 5122
[email protected]

1. Summary

1.1 This report details a bid from the Hampshire Strategic Partnership of £50,000 to support the Innovation Forum project aimed at reducing the emergency admissions of older people to acute hospital beds in the county.

2. Background

2.1 A budget for supporting projects derived from the County Council's statutory duty to prepare a community strategy has been set up and this includes a budget for pump priming the Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) and to develop further community strategies.

2.2 Each of the 11 LSP's are encouraged to bid for money from this budget to support the development of their LSPs and for the pump priming of projects.

2.3 The budget is also available for the development and implementation of the Hampshire Strategic Partnership.

2.4 The Chief Executive can approve amounts of less than £2000. The Executive Member for Community Development and Regeneration can approve amounts between £2000 and £5000. Amounts exceeding £5000 must be approved by the Executive Member and referred, with a recommendation to the Leader for decision.

3. Current bids

3.1 The following bid is recommended by the Executive Member for Community Development and Regeneration to the Leader for approval:

3.1.2 The sum of £50,000 for the Hampshire Strategic Partnership to support the Innovation Forum project aimed at reducing the emergency admissions of older people to acute hospital beds in the county.

3.1.3 The County Council, in partnership with PCTs and the Strategic Health Authority has been working as part of the Innovation Forum to develop this project, which brings together front line social care staff and GPs to identify the most vulnerable older people and to anticipate their needs and put in place services to try and prevent the need for hospitalisation. The project aims to use savings made in the provision of acute, emergency care by GPs, PCTs and hospitals to develop a more comprehensive preventive programme. The reduction in emergency admissions for older, vulnerable people is also expected to have an effect on delayed discharge pressures for Social Services.

3.1.4 The £50,000 will aim to pump prime the administration and management elements of the project including:
- providing project management through a senior practitioner in social care
- development of the monitoring and evaluation systems to establish baseline
data, sharing of data between NHS, Social Services and acute hospitals
- building capacity with GP practices - initially up to 4 as a pilot scheme
- training and support for social care and nursing staff for implementation of
the project.

3.1.5 The project has received £10,000 from the NHS Change Agency Team and additional resources are to be allocated by the PCTs involved to provide co-ordinators at the local level.

3.1.6 The project aims to promote greater independence of older people and prevent accidents in the home, which directly supports the issues identified in the Strong and Safe Communities and Health and Wellbeing themes in the Community Strategy for Hampshire

3.1.5 The unspent funds from 2002/03 (£119,252) has been agreed to be carried over to the budget for this financial year (2003/04). Added together this gives a total of £309,252. Following the above approved bids the total spend in relation to the budget is £251,489 leaving £57,763 (see attached appendix A).

Recommendation

The following decision is sought:

1. To approve the following allocation:-

The sum of £50,000 for the Hampshire Strategic Partnership to support the Innovation Forum project aimed at reducing the emergency admissions of older people to acute hospital beds in the county.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background papers

The following documents disclose facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and has been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

NB the list excludes:

1. Published works

2. Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.

File FM Exec Member Location: Community planning/committee

reports