Council grant to help reduce adult social care waiting times across Nottinghamshire

The Department of Health and Social Care has given a total of £27 million to all 152 upper-tier and unitary local authorities in England to help tackle the issue, including £344,932 to Nottinghamshire Council.

Councils must carry out social care assessments before it recommends that help is implemented such as new equipment, practical help from a paid carer or moving into a care home. However, waiting lists for assessments have grown in recent years.

The money means each local authority will fund a dedicated member of staff to review how the local systems currently work.

Nottinghamshire Council is proposing that £64,000 is used to replace “hard-to-fill social worker vacancies”, including recruiting higher numbers of assistants or trainee roles which can be easier to recruit to, and £100,000 used for new online software and training, with the remaining £180,000 used to bring in expertise to “review the current operating model”.

The intention is this would “reduce the assessment burden on the local authorities and make use of virtual assessments where appropriate”.

Council documents state: “This is a non-ringfenced grant contribution paid to local authorities towards implementing innovative projects developed in response to planned reforms.

“There are no conditions on the grant and the guidance states that the grant can be used to fund work to date or to update and implement plans that may have been paused when charging reform was delayed.”

The assessment process for adult social care in Nottinghamshire was changed from April 2022, which resulted in the forms used for assessment being reduced from 20 pages to five.

“This supports the reduction in waiting times for assessment which is identified as a key priority for the department to address,” county council documents added.

“Though delayed, the impact of Social Care Reform is expected to dramatically increase the demand for assessments and in response to this position, work is currently underway to implement an online self-assessment option for both a person’s financial and care assessment.”