Reflections on the National Children and Adults Services Conference (NCASC) 2024

Sally Burlington, CEO of ADASS, shares her reflections from the National Children and Adults Services Conference (NCASC) 2024.

It’s fair to say NCASC 2024 was a jam-packed three days: with speeches from both the Minister of Care and the Minister for Education, Big Chats led by people who draw on care and support, fantastic workshops and catching up with colleagues. As the new CEO of ADASS, it was great to be there with you all and thank you to everyone who joined us in sunny Liverpool.

In our fast paced, remote world, it’s a real privilege to come together to talk, listen and share our experiences about working in and drawing on social care, particularly given the current challenges we are facing. So, I’d like to thank IMPOWER, whose support enabled us to make this event happen and create this opportunity for us to connect.

We welcomed Stephen Kinnock, the Minister for Care who addressed a packed auditorium, outlining the Government’s commitment to building a cross-party consensus around social care. Listening carefully between the lines, I think there were hints that a royal commission for social care or something similar might still be on the cards, to help create the stable footing needed to build a truly credible and sustainable National Care Service.  Our President Mel Williams will be meeting the Minister again soon to discuss this and other issues, so watch this space.

We also heard about the Government’s neighbourhood health approach and how social care will be central to progressing this, which was picked up again in Friday’s plenary with Sally Warren, the Director for the NHS 10-year plan.  We took the chance to draw views from ADASS members at our general meeting on Thursday evening; thank you to those who joined online as well as in the room. We covered what people in our places need from neighbourhood health and what lessons we can take from past and current approaches. This will be something I’ll be working on over the coming months with Melanie and the team, and I’ll share further developments with you in due course.

I really enjoyed the chance to talk with and hear from so many people with lived experience of social care across the conference programme but especially at the Big Chats, which were on a range of topics from collaborative working across the lifespan; the incredible difference SENCOs can make and case studies of co-production in Stockport and Leicester City council. We are so lucky to have such a supportive group of people around us who are working hard to ensure co-production sits at the heart of what we all do.