Issue - meetings

That Council approved the North Wales Market Stability Report 2022.

The Deputy Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Social Services and Wellbeing presented the North Wales Market Stability Report.  

Welsh Government (WG) had asked that local authorities and local health boards work in collaboration to produce a Market Stability Report alongside the Population Needs Assessment.  The Market Stability Report would provide an assessment of the sufficiency of care and support required when meeting the needs and demand for social care as set out in the Population Needs Assessment and the stability of the market for regulated services providing that care and support. 

A single Market Stability Report must be produced for the North Wales region and approved by Full Council for each of the Local Authority areas and the local Health Board as a requirement of the Social Services and Well Being Wales Act 2014.  The final Market Stability Report must be published on all Local Authority websites, the Health Board websites and the Regional Partnerships Board’s website in both English and Welsh with a copy of the report submitted to Welsh Ministers.   Both the Population Needs Assessment and the Market Stability Report documents would be used to inform local and regional delivery plans and service development going forward.  Therefore, she asked that Council approve the North Wales Market Stability Report for 2022.

The Chief Officer (Social Services) thanked the Contract and Commissioning Manager and her team for their work in completing the report.   The report had been presented to the Social & Health Care Overview & Scrutiny Committee and Cabinet and he was proud of the work undertaken in the development of services, such as the Children’s Homes in Mold and the expansion of the facility at Marleyfield in Buckley.  The latest Market Stability Report outlined the partnership working with partners in North Wales within the Regional Partnership Board and included the regional footprint and he highlighted the Flintshire themes.  

An overview of the elderly population in the county was provided with the over 65 predictions during the next 20 years higher in Flintshire than the regional average.  The Authority had to plan to ensure all services were resilient to provide the best quality services with the report providing excellent information not just for Health and Social Care but other services too.

In response to a question on the closure of care homes from Councillor Peers, the Chief Officer (Social Services) outlined the close working relationship with the care home partners but said that because of the pressures they had experienced some had stopped operating but this did not happen often.  The sensitivities of working with care homes, families and residents was understood to ensure that all were supported and settled in other homes.  Referring to the overall capacity he confirmed that this had reduced and highlighted that the Authority needed to provide its own good quality care provision, which was why Marleyfield had been completed and plans were ongoing to extend Croes Atti in Flint and for options to be considered for  Llys Gwenffrwd in Holywell.

In response  ...  view the full minutes text for item 33