Contact: Colin Hardy, 07718 146800, [email protected]

1 Summary

1.1 The County Council both directly provides and purchases overnight short break services to support disabled children and their carers and their carers.

1.2 The County Council is in partnership with the Hampshire Primary Care Trust for the purchase of some of these service and existing contracts in Western and South Hampshire are coming to an end. It will be necessary to re-tender for these services due to their scale and cost during 2008/9 and for new contract arrangements to be in place by April 2009.

1.3 Additionally the County Council has a partnership with the Hampshire PCT for sharing the cost of services provided by the County Council in Western and North Hampshire and these arrangements are also due for review.

1.4 The Government report published in My 2007, Aiming High for Disabled Children, sets out a programme for developing service opportunities to improve outcomes for children and an announcement is anticipated early in 2008 as to how an additional £340m nationally will be focused and distributed. It is anticipated that the main areas of additional funding will begin to be available from 2009/10 and there will be an expectation that a better choice of services will be developed. As new service opportunities are developed, including self directed care and direct payments, consumers will be able to exercise more choice over the mix of services that would best meet their needs and this in turn will have implications for the use of existing services, such as short break overnight services.

1.5 In view of all these issues it is timely for the County Council to consider with partners how services may develop over the next 3-5 years and this report seeks the authority of the Executive Member to commencing consultation on a broad range of service issues so that a decision can be made by the spring of 2008 on the future need for short break service leading to tendering opportunities being made public in June 2008.

1.6 It is intended to report further to the Executive Member in May 2008 and subsequently for tenders to be invited for the provision of services to commence from April 2009.

2 Recommendations

That the Executive Member for Children & Families approves that consultation should commence to determine the future needs for a overnight short break services to support Disabled children and their carers.

3 Pattern of overnight short break services across Hampshire

3.1 An audit of existing overnight short break service for disabled children has been undertaken and the following summarises the available places and identifies service providers.

3.2 Western Hampshire

A total of 5158 bed nights are available in Western Hampshire as summarised below

· Rose Road in Southampton, where 706 bed nights a year are purchased and where costs are shared 55% HCC and 45% Hampshire PCT.

· Stephen's Ark in Andover, where Andover and District Mencap provide 108 bed nights a year. This service also includes additional day care places.

· Merrydale in Winchester, is managed by the County Council and provides 3258 bed nights a year. The PCT make a contribution to the cost of this service to reflect health care needs.

· An additional 100 bed nights a year are spot purchased from local services.

3.3 North and East Hampshire

A total of 4570 bed nights are available in North and East Hampshire a year as summarised below

· Sunbeams in Aldershot, which is managed by the County Council provides 1452 bed nights a year.

· Firvale in Basingstoke, is a jointly run health and social care service providing 9 places - 3258 bed nights. The service is jointly funded by the County Council and the Hampshire PCT and jointly run by HCC and Basingstoke and North Hants Foundation Trust. The service provides in the order of 5 places - 1810 bed nights for social care support and in the order of 4 places - 1450 bed nights for more dependant health care support. The total number of places are used flexibly dependant upon needs.

3.4 South Hampshire

A total of 1720 bed nights a year are available in South Hampshire as summarised below

· 660 bed nights Purchased from KIDS.

· 350 bed nights a year purchased from Portsmouth City Council at Beechside in Drayton, North Portsmouth.

· 700 bed nights are directly provided by the Hampshire PCT at Bedhampton House in Bedhampton. Discussions have commenced with the Hampshire PCT to consider if this service obligation should transfer to the County Council. This service has been the subject of previous consultation as the building is becoming unfit for purpose and the PCT and the County Council have previously considered a joint capital venture to re-provide for the service. A recent review indicated that the capital requirement would likely be in excess of £3.1m and revenue requirements, based on the experience at Merrydale and Firvale, are likely to be in excess of the current service costs. It has not been possible to make any provision for capital or additional revenue and it is intended to consult locally on how the service could be re-provided within other service or contracts should the obligations and the existing revenue budget be transferred to the County Council.

4 Aiming high for disabled children

4.1 Further guidance is anticipated from Government in 2008 as £340m of additional funds are distributed to Local Authorities.

4.2 The headline improvement programme is intended to strengthen accountability to consumers and to provide a broader range of service opportunities including individual budgets and extension of the direct payments scheme. These developments are anticipated to includes the following features which will form the focus of the proposed local consultation and are intended to result in a better choice for consumers in identifying a mix of service that will meet their needs. It is possible that more flexible contract arrangements will be needed for some services to ensure a balance between services consumers may call upon and budgets being available to support direct payment options.

· Identifying a `core offer' to include better information, improved participation and a common assessment arrangement

· Support to families to influence the design and delivery of services, including developing individual budgets to improve choice and control over the services that families receive

· To improve needs analysis, performance management and service planning

4.3 It is intended that the proposed consultation will be able to identify priorities for service development in 2009/10 so that once an announcement is made as to how additional funds will be distributed it will be possible to make an early start on service developments, including addressing any issues of equity of access indicated in the current pattern of services.

5 Implications

5.1 The proposals in this report are expected to support of the County Council's corporate priorities as summarised below

· Making Hampshire safer and more secure for all by enabling disabled children to have greater inclusion and involvement within their local community

· Maximising well-being by ensuring every disabled child can have the best possible start in life

· Enhancing our quality of place through developing opportunities for all citizens to be included within their local community.

5.2 The proposal to commence consultation will also support all the outcomes of the Children Act, in particular to ensure the health and safeguarding needs of children with a disability and their families are addressed.

5.3 The emerging LAA priorities may also include reference to developing services for children with a disability

6 Consultation

6.1 The proposal to commence consultation on future service needs is supported by the Hampshire Primary Care Trust and will run for 3 months from February 2008

7 Legal implications

7.1 None.

8 Financial implications

8.1 None at this stage.

9 Personnel implications

9.1 None at this stage.

10 Impact assessment

10.1 Race and equality issues will be addressed in the proposed consultation and any issues will be included in the future service strategy.

11 Crime prevention issues

11.1 Any impact on Crime Prevention issues will be addressed in the future service strategy.

12 Views of the Local County Councillor

12.1 The views of local Councillors will be sought during the proposed consultation.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background documents

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

NB: the list excludes

None.