Housing Events in 2024 offer a wide range of insights into how key stakeholders can better tackle housing challenges across the country, and Housing 2024 was no different.
With co-production being one of the key messages from Housing 2024, it is clear that improvements to housing problems will only improve when stakeholders in the housing sector communicate with each other and individuals to concentrate on what matters to them.
Whether it’s preventing homelessness, creating net zero homes, better managing ageing populations, making housing more accessible, or supporting independent living, providing support that the individual wants, needs, and requires is vital.
So what were the key takeaways from Housing 24 and what are the next steps to integrate housing, health, and social care?
This article will review some of the key insights and next steps in providing and creating virtual homes that cater to every individual need by continuously involving them in every housing decision being made.
Adult social care budgets are crucial in helping local authorities plan, commission, and deliver the social care needs of their community. However, restrictions and limitations from the Department of Health and Social Care Budget, as you will probably be aware, cause multiple challenges for local authorities to both improve their future planning as well as reach the increasing and complex demands of the community.
So, what is the budget for social care? How can budgets differ? And what are the best ways adults' social care budgets can be spent?
At The Access Group, we are aware of the challenges across the health and social care sector. We want to make it easier for local authorities to manage the challenges of commissioning social care, so budgets and resources can be spread further to prevent individuals going without the support they need.
Understanding budgets in health and social care isn’t always easy, especially as both autumn and spring budgets lead to changes in values, legislation, and responsibilities. Local authorities must be flexible in the services they deliver to ensure their responsibilities of the Care Act are consistently delivered to improve outcomes.
By the end of this article, you will know all the latest breakdown of adult social care budgets, including the targets and areas of improvement the government and the Department of Health and Social Care want your local authority to follow to achieve local, regional, and national targets.
This article will also break down some of the best ways to optimise the funding so no individual goes without the support they require and deserve by digitally transforming your processes and workflows for the best outcomes.
Local health and social care services are vital in ensuring individuals’ physical and mental wellbeing. Local authorities play a pivotal role in shaping health and social care services across the community.
As you are probably aware it is the role and responsibility of your local authority to ensure you’re your local population receives high-quality, efficient, and responsive care when they need it.
But how best can your local authority commission health and social care services? What are the challenges that need to be addressed? And how best can these challenges be avoided?
At The Access Group, we are aware of the challenges facing the health and social care market as well as the impacts limiting budgets and rising demands have on local authorities when ensuring the accessibility of health and social care services across the community.
We know that local authorities are aware that investing in digital solutions and local government software is a good step forward to commissioning and delivering better health and social care services in line with their responsibilities in the Care Act. But we also know from our recent Social Care Commissioning Report, that one of the biggest concerns when commissioning health and social care services is investing in technology that doesn’t work, in fact, nearly a fifth of respondents voted that as their biggest concern.
By the end of this article, you will know and understand the best ways your local authority can commission your health and social care services by overcoming the challenges faced by the market, as well as the importance of digitally transforming your services correctly to get the best return on investment.
Homelessness prevention and tackling homelessness are key responsibilities for local authorities. Under the Homelessness Reduction Act 2018 councils are required to provide help to people facing homelessness and find ways to prevent it in the first place.
According to the UK.GOV's latest statistics, households in temporary accommodation by the end of December 2023 have increased by 12.1% in the last year and 3.4% since the last quarter, meaning a staggering 112,660 households are depending on temporary accommodation. It also recorded that a total of 145,800 children were living in temporary accommodation by the end of December 2023.
But why does the dependency on temporary housing keep rising? What is the government doing to help tackle homelessness? And how best can your local authority prevent homelessness in your community.
At Access Adam Housing, we know and understand the housing challenges local authorities are facing across the UK and why that’s causing the rise in homelessness. We make it our aim to not only help provide fully compliant temporary accommodation, but we also go one step further by supporting your homelessness prevention strategies to ensure individuals and families get back on their feet to make temporary housing more permanent.
By the end of this article, you will fully understand what the national definition of homelessness is, why tackling it is vital for your community, more about the pattern of homelessness rates in the UK, as well as the best ways to prevent homelessness across your community both now and in the future.
The Care Act’s local authority responsibilities have changed since the Health and Care bill passed in 2022. Local authorities will soon be under the supervision and scrutiny of the CQC, including the use of CQC inspection of local authorities. With that, many of the responsibilities which local authorities have under the Care Act have been discussed consistently including both market shaping and market oversight.
You may be wondering what these responsibilities mean for your local community and how by ensuring you are delivering these duties, you can you have a better provision of care.
At the Access Group we are aware of the challenges local authorities are facing currently which can impede you delivering the duties under the Care Act. We understand the issues with discharge delays, contract management, and managing longer term care plans to name a few.
Housing compliance is slowly becoming one of the biggest issues in the housing sector. The demand for social and temporary housing keeps rapidly increasing but the availability of compliant homes is decreasing.
Currently, housing is one of the top wider social determinants of health that individuals across the UK must face every day. It is believed that many housing crises are happening currently, but one of the biggest we are facing is the availability of fully compliant social and temporary housing.
In the last year alone over 100,000 households were living in temporary accommodation including over 120,000 children. Currently, 68% of families have been living in temporary accommodation for over a year. The housing charity Shelter has argued that due to the housing issues and risks we are currently facing, temporary housing is slowly becoming the new social housing. The 2023 Homelessness Monitor has reported that 85% of councils across England are facing an increase in people experiencing homelessness.
What is causing this increase in demand for social and temporary housing and why is compliant housing so difficult to find and use?
At Access Adam Housing, we know how important it is for local authorities and councils to seek fully compliant housing to place individuals and families in and help them get back on their feet.
This article will explain what housing compliance is, and why it is important, as well as highlight the housing risks when homes are not fully compliant or when compliance housing isn’t taken seriously.
This article will also address what the government has put in place to overcome the challenges of housing compliance and how our housing management software offers a unique solution to make these housing issues more manageable and ensure you only ever work with 100% compliant housing providers from now on.
Integrated Care Systems (ICS) were introduced to connect the newly formed Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) and local authorities, enabling a more seamless healthcare service which could then give better visibility of the needs of patients and allow NHS organisations to more effectively meet these needs and provide the right high-quality care - with the ultimate goal of helping more people and to a greater degree of success.
In the words of NHS England: “Integrated care is about giving people the support they need, joined up across local councils, the NHS, and other partners. It removes traditional divisions between hospitals and family doctors, between physical and mental health, and between NHS and council services.”
ICSs began in July 2023 but were first proposed in February 2022, when the UK Government published its ‘Joining up care for people, places and populations’ whitepaper, which laid out new plans for the integration of health and social care in England and how ICSs can bring this together in line with the NHS Long Term Plan.
Local authorities and NHS England are working closely together but there is still a long way to go due to further government reform, funding changes and internal goals and targets. This is affecting the speed and timing for when these changes can be implemented and we are still feeling the disruption post-pandemic.
In this article we will explore the annual priorities of an Integrated Care System and how these goals are set and ranked. We will also discuss the hangover effect of Covid-19 and the strain on the NHS, the challenges of ongoing digital transformation, and the role providers such as The Access Group can have in aiding an ICB in delivering quality care to their local area.
Digital solutions are becoming the backbone for businesses across the world and healthcare is no different. Technological innovation has digitally transformed healthcare commissioning, providing a range of cost-effective solutions accessible using cloud technology.
Not only has cloud-based commissioning disrupted the market, but also enabled NHS procurement teams to streamline processes, connect providers and patients, react quickly, and support the provision of consistent, high-quality care.
Discover why healthcare is turning to cloud services and what the full advantages of using cloud commissioning technology, like the Access adam healthcare solution, can do to transform procurement services.
Hospital discharge delays are becoming a major issue for patients, their families, hospitals, and local authorities. To combat these ever-growing impacts caused by delayed hospital discharges, the Government has announced a £250 million discharge fund.
Like many local authorities, this discharge fund is probably on your mind. You may be struggling to decide how best to utilise the fund so your local community can fully benefit from it. Or you might want to see what other local authorities are currently doing to reduce hospital discharge delays for inspiration?
If that’s you, then by the end of this article you will have all the answers to everything relating to delayed hospital discharges.
At The Access Group, we know the challenges local authorities face to keep up with the demand and capacity to accommodate all discharge plans as they come through. We know ideally the best place for patients to continue recovering is in their own homes, however, due to staffing capacities this is not always the case.
We provide a plethora of digital tools and solutions that can help your local authority manage caseloads more efficiently and help you be better prepared for the demand now and in the future, without inhibiting the quality of care your local authority delivers.
This article will review the hospital discharge process, the causes of hospital discharge delays, and how that impacts the patient, the community, hospitals, and your local area. We also explain in depth the terms of the Government’s discharge fund and what that means for local authorities, the reactions to this discharge fund, and what are the best ways to utilise the funding to reduce these delays to improve patient outcomes further.
Community alarm systems have been available since the early 1970s and the fundamentals have changed little. However, in the last few years, spurred on in part by the pandemic, use and interest in both digital telecare and digital telehealth have grown massively.
If you are a local authority you are probably regularly searching for different ways to help your adults and older residents be able to live independently and safely at home for as long as possible . Increasingly, Local Authorities are looking for solutions that go beyond just reactive alarms for emergencies and are looking for more proactive , preventative solutions with an alarm service acting as a safety net.
You might be a loved one or a relative of someone that needs extra support and could be overwhelmed with all the information that is out there on personal alarms for older people, and want to find out all the information you need in one place.
Or you might just want to see the differences between different types of alarms to identify which one best suits your needs.
If that is you then by the end of this article all your questions surrounding community alarm systems will be answered.
At The Access Group we make it a priority to put people first with everything we do. We want to give people the freedom to do more and promote the importance of person-centred support and care. We aware of the challenges facing local authorities with the current shortages in capacity, hospital discharge delays and the importance of delivering their responsibilities under the Care Act.
So, we want to ease this stress and help you find the best community alarm for you and your community.
