Partnership Board Minutes 23 June 2005

Leeds Learning Disability Partnership Board

Notes of the meeting held at St Matthias Church Centre 23rd June 2005

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Welcome and Ice-breaker Introduction.

Ray Wilk welcomed everyone to the meeting

Michael Cass performed the ice breaker by asking people to say what would be their ideal job

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Board Members at the meeting and guest speakers:

Janet Wright, Joint Commissioning Service
Ray Wilk, Independent Chair
Michael Cass, Co Chair
Sheila Quinn, Women First
Andrew Walsh, Learning Disability Reference Group
Karina Jenkins, Learning Disability Reference Group
Mark Fennelly, St Anne’s Community Service
David Hansen, Home Farm Trust
Ken Mccullough, Carer
Scott Cunningham, Learning Disability Forum
Nancy Hill, North West PCT
Dave Rosser, Head of Learning Disability Service
Les France, Asking You
Khalid Arian, Joint Commissioning Service
Harvey Raytt, Connect in the North
Sarah Wheatley, Connect in the North
Gordon Kerr, Connexions
Jonathan Butler, Leeds People First

People who could not come to the meeting:

Jocelyn Richards, Rooots Group
Norman Roberts, North East PCT
George Mcintyre, South PCT
Glenn Swindell, Keyring
Bill Walton, People in Action
Julia Cooke/Christine Hodgson, Disability Service Team
People at the meeting were asked to sign an attendance sheet although only Board members and guest speakers would be listed in the minutes.

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Updates

Learning Disability Development Fund
(The money given to every Partnership Board to help make Valuing People happen). Janet explained that although not yet definite, Rob Greig is hoping there will be an agreement that some Development Fund money will stay after this year.

The Valuing People Support Team felt that the biggest failure in Valuing People is employment and during October to December there will be a big drive to address this. The Partnership Board will bear this in mind when working out how to spend the Development Fund money.

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Planning Team - Janet Wright
Janet told the Board the steering group has been formed and includes the following members;
Steve Bardsley - Care Management Service Manager,
Scott Cunningham - Leeds Voluntary Sector Learning Disabilities Forum,
Christine Taylor - Community Mental Health Trust,
Cathy Wintersgill - Connect in the North,
Janet Wright - Joint Commissioning Service
Mark Wallis - Through the Maze.

The Steering Group will seek advice and help from other groups which will include; young people in transitions, older family carers, large day centres, people living in local authority accommodation, people from black and ethnic minority communities.

A request was made to have a black and ethnic minority group representative on the team. Janet agreed to put this to the Steering Group. A further request was made to ensure that all ethnic minority communities were represented.

Ray added that Leeds should try to develop local services for all local people so that fewer people had to leave home.

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Ethnicity Worker – Aqila Choudhry
The Ethnicity Task Group has prepared the job specification for the post of Ethnicity Worker. The purpose of this will be to support the implementation of the ethnicity strategies outlined in the Valuing People White Paper. The next step is for the Board to approve and identify a timescale and establish who will be involved in the recruitment. Valuing People have been pleased with the work so far and have invited the Task Group to join the national group.

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Northern Centre for Inclusion (now called Inclusion North) – Scott Cunningham
Scott is the representative on the Leeds steering group and advised the Board that the Inclusion North scheme is still being set up to take on the Valuing People work. All Partnership Boards have to pay to be a member and Leeds has already joined. Concerns have been raised that if people do not see achievements in the first year, membership may decline. The Board to receive regular feedback.

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Report from the Learning Disability Reference Group Meeting held 7th June – Jonathan Butler
Jonathan said the reference group were told what happened at the last Partnership Board meeting on 15th March and at the extra-ordinary meeting on 7th April. The group then discussed what they felt were the most important things the Partnership Board should be working on which are;

• Person Centred Planning
• Being included
• Advocacy

The group also talked about setting up a radio station run by people with learning disabilities. Many good ideas were put forward which would allow people to give and receive information, listen to interviews, hear about meetings, have phone-ins and listen to music requests.

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Section 31 Agreement – Dave Rosser
The final document is now with the PCT and legal section and will be brought to the Partnership Board in September.

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Partnership Executive – Dave Rosser ;Membership needs to be finalised but will be established by the end of July.

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Therapy Review – Dave Rosser

As the demand for the therapy services such as physiotherapy, speech and language and occupational therapy has increased so much, therapists have asked for a review to be commissioned to look at ways of meeting the demand. The report from this review will be brought to the Partnership Board and taken to the PCT for action.

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PFI Bid – Dave Rosser
Dave congratulated Andy Rawnsley and the PFI team for the successful progress made so far.

An independent review team came to look at the Leeds bid and have given the ‘green light’ to go ahead to the next stage.

The business case is being finalised and goes to the local authority Executive Board 6th July and then to the government’s treasury department by 29th July. A response is expected by September or October.

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Carers Involvement – Ken Mccullough
Ken told everyone this was his last appearance as the Partnership Board Carers Representative and thanked everyone for their efforts and support.

He commented that there have been changes in the attitude towards carers and the National Family Carers Report highlighted the Leeds OCSS (Older Carers Suppport Service) as a positive example of this.

Ken met with Bridget Mcguire, Social Services Carer’s Strategy Officer, and Janet Wright to discuss the problems facing carers. Bridget has agreed to sponsor a Carer Involvement day in September to look at ways of supporting carers enabling them to become more involved with the Partnership Board.

It was suggested that the Partnership Board could form a Carers Reference Group and It may be possible to advertise for an organisation to support such a group as this has proved successful on previous occasions.

People were reminded that it is everyone’s responsibility to get carers involved in the board.

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Person Centred Planning – Sarah Wheatley and Harvey Raytt
Connect in the North have been looking at how we are doing in Leeds with person centred planning and approaches. A questionnaire was sent out to organisations to measure their success and identify problem areas.

Sarah gave the Board examples of some of the achievements so far and ideas people have given to make things progress further.

The Board then worked in groups to look at ways of implementing the following recommendations from the report –

1. There must be values training delivered by people with learning disabilities
2. Further develop leadership in all organisations
3. The Joint Commissioning Strategy needs to ensure that services purchased become more person centred
4. Every organisation must identify a lead to be accountable for the progress of person centred planning
5. Use person centred benchmarks to evaluate the success of services

Feedback from the group work will be given at a future Partnership Board meeting.

A copy of the report can be obtained from;
Connect in the North,
Bridge House,
Balm Road
Leeds
LS10 2TP

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Any Other Business and questions from members of the public.

Partnership Board Market place

Ray suggested the Board make space available on Board days for groups to advertise their work and say what they were doing to help make Valuing People happen. He also said everyone should take responsibility for making Valuing People happen. The Board can help others, but cannot take over other groups responsibilities.

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Seating:
A new seating arrangement had been tried at the meeting to enable more involvement. Feedback suggested that as so many people had attended, the arrangement hadn’t worked.

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LDDF:
Confirmation was requested on the final amount of Learning Disability Development Fund (LDDF) money which may be used to fund small projects. Janet commented that as more priorities were being added to the LDDF agenda, confirmation of what we had to spend money on would be needed before we would know how much money was left. Dave Rosser confirmed that the Board had agreed to spend some of the Development Fund money on the Ethnicity Worker and Inclusion North. Further discussions were taking place around the Planning Team.

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Mark Mitchell – OCSS (Older Carers Support Service):
He is in contact with approximately 200 carers and offered to pass on Partnership Board agenda and minutes.

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Maggie Graham:
Mencap said people are not aware of what’s happening with the Partnership Board.

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Sarah Wheatley (Connect in the North) was asked about the 6 organisations who employ people with learning disabilities and could this information be made available.

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Day Services Modernisation Manager: Maggie Graham asked what was happening with Cara Green’s post (Day Services Modernisation Officer). Janet Wright said that Ivan Barnett (Manager of Moorend ATC) had been seconded into the Joint Commissioning Service who are currently working on plans to submit to the Director of Social Services. Maggie also asked for an update on Day Service Modernisation to be given at the next meeting.

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The next Partnership Board meeting will be on Tuesday 20th September 2005

From 10 am until 2 pm, at St Matthias Church Centre, St Matthias Street, Leeds 4

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Return to: Leeds Learning Disability Partnership Board