Casey Commission – An opportunity to influence change
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The Casey Commission Terms of Reference were published late last week. ADASS welcomed the focus of the Commission but we were clear that the timelines need to be shorter or risk further deterioration of care and support.
To inform our response to the Commission, the national ADASS team have been working to gather views from the membership to ensure our messaging will be based upon a broad consensus. We’ve reached out to our national policy networks and leads, as well as sending out discussion toolkits and questions to regional branches, associates and extended member networks.
This work has provided us with some rich and constructive feedback about the immediate challenges and areas of focus that the Commission could investigate to improve the delivery of adult social care. This included, but was not limited to data and evidence gaps, reviewing the boundaries between health and social care, addressing workforce challenges and integration beyond health – housing, employment, welfare, children’s services.
Longer-term responses have pointed towards the need to think about whether the Care Act remains fit for purpose, how to improve access to care and support, how to move towards equality of outcomes and the need for greater long-term planning, considering demographic change, by developing a stronger evidence base.
One area that’s been consistent throughout responses is the need for the Commission to have co-production at its heart. This means that we will press for the Commission to seek views from people who draw on care and support, their families, carers and the workforce. We were heartened to hear that the first meeting Baroness Casey held last week was with people with lived experience.
Only last week we used the information that we’ve collected to-date to inform an interactive session at our Spring Seminar on ‘Reform: Priorities and Opportunities’. The appetite and passion for change from Directors and their teams was clear. We’re now in the process of writing up the feedback and will feed these into the development of policy lines that will act as the basis for our Casey Commission policy, public affairs and media work.
As the consultation process for the Commission becomes clearer, we will undertake further engagement with our members to ensure that our response will include a cross-section of evidence and case studies to showcase what could be achieved through ambitious adult social care reform.
If you would like to share your thoughts, case studies on what works or evidence to feed into the national response to the Casey Commission please send them to team@adass.org.uk or via your regional ADASS branch.