Breaking Barriers
Spring Review 2019
The Case for Place
Tuesday 11th June 2019
Palace of Westminster
ABOUT THE BBI SPRING REVIEW 2019: THE CASE FOR PLACE
Breaking Barriers Innovations Spring Review 2019: The Case for Place was held on Tuesday 11th June between 6:30pm and 8:30pm at the Palace of Westminster, in partnership with our good friends at Agilisys.
This was an opportunity to hear about the work that BBI has already undertaken across the spheres of health and social care, housing and infrastructure. It was also an opportunity to see the progress of our 2019 Programme regarding the BBI Playbook.
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE BBI SPRING REVIEW 2019
One of the challenges that we face today is around our ageing population. In 50 years time, there will be 8.6 million more people over the aged of 65 in the UK; that’s roughly the same size as the population of London. The adjacent slide depicts the sheer number of additional people over the age of 65 there will be in the UK. However, in areas like Cornwall, Somerset, and Cumbria, services are having the deal with the effect of an ageing society right now. However, there are some national examples of innovative problem solving. For example, Salford’s move towards becoming an age friendly city has resulted in a total rethink about housing, transport, and other services with the ageing population in mind. It is also worth noting that the move to, and increased focus on, prevention begins, at least partly, with the ageing population in mind as both the NHS and social care providers consider how to deliver care in the home rather than in acute settings.
In addition to the ageing society, there is increasing pressure on the NHS workforce with the gap expected to grow to 250,000 over the next decade, as these graphs demonstrate. For example, the social care workforce shortage is predicted to be 400,000 by 2028. The interim NHS People’s Plan, which has just been published, seeks to take steps to improving the leadership culture within the NHS, addressing urgent workforce shortages in nursing, delivering 21st century care, and a developing a new operating model for workforce. There is also learning to be taken from the University of East London’s Competency Based Learning Health and Social Care Programme that has been developed with extensive input from employers, service users, and their families. The programme creates a career pathway from Apprentice to Registered Professional and includes has a curriculum based on patient-centred care framework of standards.
All of these challenges are of course underpinned by a major shift in the supply and demand relationship major public service organisations have experienced over the last decade. The NHS currently anticipate minimal, if any, growth in real terms funding, with funding only set to reach that of the late 1990s after a pledge by government. Within local authorities, the squeeze on statutory services creates further supply pressure. As the graph depicts, Adult social care funding has decreased 10%, even after adjusting for inflation, and housing services have fallen by nearly a half. All of this is of course happening at the same time as people are getting older and their problems more complex.
Our first playbook programme pilot in Cornwall has uncovered a number of strengths and challenges unique to Cornwall. The county’s ageing population puts a strain on services already in demand which is in turn compounded by the poor public transport links. The influx of tourists into the county every summer sees the population size multiply resulting in huge amounts of seasonal pressure on the health system. However, a distinct strength in Cornwall is the amount of active volunteers across the county. Volunteer Cornwall estimates 140,000 volunteers in the county – equating to a workforce of 14,000 full time employees who boost the county-wide economy by around £500million every year. The focus of the BBI playbook programme in Cornwall is on equipping the workforce (including volunteers!) to operate across health and social care, and residential settings. The idea of looking at health and housing stems from the £20.2m annual cost to the NHS in Cornwall of preventable health problems caused by poor housing coupled with the fact that the council is close to publishing its housing strategy for 2020 – 2025 with health set to be an important part of this.
We expect to finalise the first action plans for Cornwall and Portsmouth (where we are focusing on social isolation by equipping the workforce to work with a family-first approach to care) in September and are delighted to be initiating programmes Somerset and other local authority regions to begin within the next month. In addition to these schemes, Breaking Barriers are about to commence on The Thinking it Through programme of work – an exciting national programme working with some of the county’s verterans.
