Networks pick up current issues and pressures with a chance to get peer support or link with commissioners and other public sector colleagues.

DHSC announced that Oxfordshire has joined the other five local authorities as a trailblazer early implementer of charging reforms ahead of the national date of October 2023.

The trailblazers will shape the Government approach to the implementation of the charging reform across England, by allowing DHSC to trial key aspects of the reforms.

The deadline has been extended to Sunday 7 August.

Oxfordshire County Council has confirmed that, "any data you provide will only be used for this exercise, to establish a fair cost of care in Oxfordshire. Records will be kept safe and will be destroyed upon completion of the process”.

We have created a Fair Cost of Care webpage with all the links and advice you need to enable to you submit your data.

It's really important that we find a way to enable all providers to have their voices heard in this process.

If you are a home care provider and wish to submit anonymously, you can do this via eddy.mcdowall1@nhs.net. We will ensure your data is submitted before the final deadline.

Oxfordshire County Council has set out a timetable for moving existing ETMS users across to ContrOCC by 31 March 2023. The letter above is for home care providers providing 'legacy packages'. We are aiming to invite the Council to set out more details in our first September home care network.

The Better Care Fund policy framework and Planning Requirements have been published.

The policy framework sets out the national conditions, metrics and funding arrangements for the Better Care Fund (BCF) in 2022 to 2023.

BCF plans are jointly developed by health and social care partners in every area in England and support integrated, person-centred care in communities and should include local care providers in their creation.

The policy framework is intended for use by those responsible for delivering the Better Care Fund at a local level (such as integrated care boards (ICBs), local authorities, health and wellbeing boards) and NHS England.

For Oxfordshire first plans are being discussed as detailed here, although they may be subject to change.

A new Oxfordshire JSNA bitesize is now available on the cost of food, part of a planned series related to the cost of living. Download the bitesize report here

Oxfordshire’s new Food Strategy (May 2022) sets out challenges and actions, including tackling food poverty.

Citizens Advice North Oxfordshire and South Northants have helped create this bitesize.

More on the SE Business Portal. Expression of interest open to 4 October 2022.

Integrated Commissioning Systems came into being on 1 July. They replaced Clinical Commissioning Groups and will be responsible for commissioning NHS services in the local region. Since much of adult social care is funded or part-funded through pooled budgets, it is important that adult social care is not only connected, but also embedded in decision making.

This Good Governance Guide provides a straightforward primer of the development steps and best practice for where partners should feature in the system.

Looking at our Non-Exec Directors on the BOB ICS in the Leadership Team, none appear to have experience in adult social care, so there is an opportunity here for our sector to support and inform them of the challenges you are facing and what needs to improve to hold the Leadership Team to account.

On behalf of care associations across the country, NCF were commissioned to support the development of this guidance. Read their ICS briefing here.

BOB ICS has set up Net Zero Sustainability Forums looking at the impact of health and social care across our region - this is in response to an NHSE directive for all ICSs to take action. Whilst this may not feel like the top-most priority at the moment, it is of course a challenge facing us all.

Not surprisingly, health and care has a significant environmental impact: desflurane used for general anaesthesia, is reported as being 5% of the annual NHS carbon footprint, and consumables and short-journey travel are an integral part of care delivery.

If this is of particular interest to you and you would like to make a difference, we would welcome you getting in touch with us so we can link you in with good practice, however small steps they might be. Just reply to this newsletter.

In the meantime Zurich Municipal offers this white paper for discussion.

Hilary Munube, IPC Lead for BOB ICS is pulling together a report on what is currently being done to reduce gram negative bloodstream infections (GNBSI) across our ICS.

What activities do you have in place in your care home? These may be initiatives to improve hydration, nutrition and monitoring catheter management, e.g.; drinks rounds, urinary catheter audits and monitoring, use of NEWS2 or RESPECT.

A collection of tools to help reduce gram negative blood stream infections (GNBSIs) can be found here to provide evidence towards the May 2022 addendum Tackling antimicrobial resistance 2019 to 2024: addendum to the UK's 5-year national action plan.

We would like your views as a care home manager on your experiences of caring for deteriorating residents, tools used to identify and care for residents at risk of deterioration such as RESTORE2 and the broader context of maintaining health and wellbeing of your residents. We would like you to complete a short questionnaire that will take 10 minutes. This is an opportunity for you to have a voice and share views and experiences to influence policy and planning in this area.

The University of Oxford and the Oxford Academic Health Science Network (AHSN) are collaborating with the Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West Integrated Care System (ICS) to better understand and hopefully contribute to improving quality of life and care in care homes. The project is led by Professor Ray Fitzpatrick, as part of a NIHR long term programme (https://www.arc-oxtv.nihr.ac.uk/). A particular focus is on implementing RESTORE2 - an assessment tool for residents, but we are also very keen to understand the broader context of pressures and opportunities facing those who manage care homes.

If you are interested and would like to complete the survey, please use this link https://tinyurl.com/Oxford-RESTORE2-Survey to access the survey. There is no obligation to take part. The survey deadline has been extended to the end of August 2022.

We look forward to receiving your response. Thank you very much for your time.

It's come home - let's cuddle that feeling for the rest of the year.

Lionesses, we're so proud of you.

Women and girls across England will benefit from improved healthcare following the publication of the first ever government-led Women’s Health Strategy for England.

Following a call for evidence which generated almost 100,000 responses from individuals across England, and building on Our Vision for Women’s Health, the strategy sets bold ambitions to tackle deep-rooted, systemic issues within the health and care system to improve the health and wellbeing of women, and reset how the health and care system listens to women. 

Entrants have until 5 August to submit their audition reels to a judging panel, and those who make it through to the next stage will be invited to face the judges and perform at an in-person final, streamed around the country and watched by care teams, those supported by the sector and their families! Your audition doesn’t need to be high tech, a simple video recorded on your phone is perfect.

The winning act will perform live at this year’s Care Show at the NEC, Birmingham and over the same weekend perform at the Leaders in Care Awards, travel and accommodation will be covered for this trip! The winner will also receive £500 of Love to Shop vouchers to spend at over 20,000 stores, restaurants and attractions across the UK. 

Last year 100% of finalists agreed or strongly agreed Care Sector's Got Talent helped them to celebrate the social care sector!

If you would like to get involved head over to the Championing Social Care website to find out more and upload your entry - https://championingsocialcare.org.uk/care-sectors-got-talent/

Read more about last year’s winners here - https://championingsocialcare.org.uk/the-stronger-together-community-choirs-big-break/

Thank you to sponsors Florence and Tower Fire without whom this event would not be possible. 

Is HMRC in contact with you so say that they will be treating as a taxable benefit, use of ICF grant to pay staff to use taxis rather than use public transport during the pandemic? Using taxis was a suggested use of the grant (to reduce risks of infection) as listed in Appendix A for both residential and domiciliary care settings under ICF rounds 2 & 3. A number of care homes across England have raised concerns and Care Association Alliance's accounting partner, Hazlewoods has advised as follows:

HMRC’s only concession has been to allow these taxable benefits to be included on a PSA, so the employer can cover the tax costs of providing this benefit. No other concessions are available.

If you would like further advice, Hazelwoods would be happy to have an initial discussion if you are either a Member of OACP or Oxfordshire Care Home Association. Please ask us to signpost you.

The Government is providing £37 billion this year to help households combat the rising cost of living.

This may lead to questions about how much people may be entitled to.​

This toolkit contains resources to help signpost to

Posters are available to order in A3, A4 and A5 size and can be ordered from DWP leaflets: order form GOV.UK (www.gov.uk), using the following codes

The Cost of Living stakeholder toolkit includes a range of materials for employers and partners to use and also provides an update about the first cost of living payments. It contains:

Social care is facing the greatest workforce crisis in its history and lacks a credible Government strategy to tackle the situation, say MPs sitting on the Health and Social care Committee.

The Workforce: recruitment, training and retention report from the Health and Social Care Committee outlines the scale of the workforce crisis. New research suggests the NHS England is short of

The report finds the Government to have shown a reluctance to act decisively to address the workforce crisis. In addition, pay is a crucial factor in recruitment and retention in social care. Government analysis estimated more than 17,000 jobs in care paid below the minimum wage. A separate report by the Committee’s panel of independent experts (Expert Panel) rates the Government’s progress overall to meet key commitments it has made on workforce as 'inadequate'.

NHS Confederation echo those concerns in their report System on a cliff edge: addressing challenges in social care capacity Almost three-quarters (73 per cent) said a lack of adequate social care capacity is having a significant or very significant impact on their ability to tackle the elective care backlog. Over 80 per cent said it is driving urgent care demand.

To help with recruitment, the Care Association Alliance south east has written a step-by-step guide to overseas recruitment. Read more here

The guide was produced with Local Government Association and ADASS.

An Independent report, Building the Right Support: an analysis of funding flows, analyses funding flows associated with 'Building the Right Support' for people with a learning disability and autistic people.

Building the Right Support seeks to support an overall reduction in the number of people with a learning disability and autistic people who are in specialist inpatient mental health care by improving their access to community support.

Ensuring the effective flow of funding between organisations is a factor that will help Government to deliver this ambition, as highlighted in the Building the Right Support Action Plan.

DHSC commissioned this review to better understand funding flows in the health and social care system, including any financial incentives and disincentives.

Revised Operational Guidance to Implement a Lifetime Cap on Care Costs was published last month following a consultation.

You can find a general briefing courtesy of NCF summary here together with a useful briefing note from Anthony Collins which looks at the implications. 

The improvements being made will also be reflected in the bulk update template available to Care Home providers. These changes, along with those to reports, will be shared by email in the next few days.

For more information click here

For a comprehensive list of the mandated data, please see this summary from last week.

Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has directed more improvements to local councils in the past year than ever before. Last week, the Ombudsman’s annual review of complaints gives a concise overview of the state of local government complaints over the past year.

And although the Ombudsman’s role is to remedy individual people’s problems, it is increasingly looking at how it can make sweeping recommendations on the back of those complaints to help councils learn and improve services for everyone.

In 2021-22, the Ombudsman made 1,848 service improvement recommendations, with all but a vanishingly small number of councils complying (99.7%).

Jenny Firth, Deputy Director of Adult Social Care Operational Resilience at DHSC has published a reminder for staff to be vaccinated this autumn to ensure maximum operational capacity over winter.

And NHS has provided a booster countdown checklist mainly aimed at care homes for preparing consent forms.

UKHSA has published its 2021 to 2022 annual flu reports, summarising the surveillance of influenza and other seasonal respiratory viruses in winter 2021 to 2022, as well as end-of-season influenza vaccine uptake in GP patients, in frontline healthcare workers and in children of school age.

During the 2021-2022 season up to week 14 of 2022, low levels of influenza activity were seen across the UK, with most indicators remaining below baseline for the majority of the season. Although activity was generally higher than levels observed during the 2020 to 2021 season, it remained much lower than levels observed in previous seasons. Low-level increases in influenza activity were first observed in 2021 through several indicators, before COVID-19 Omicron control measures from late November 2021 suppressed influenza transmission. Influenza subsequently increased in multiple indicators up to week 14 of 2022, representing late-season activity.

Influenza vaccine uptake in those aged over 65 in 2021-2022 was the highest ever achieved at 82.3%. Uptake in those aged 6 months to under 65 years clinically at-risk was similar to last season, at 52.9%. For other cohorts, vaccine uptake was slightly below levels observed in 2020 to 2021, including 61.4% in frontline healthcare workers (a definition which doesn't include social care workforce).

ONS has published the first Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey

Various media outlets are reporting that long-covid symptoms vary according to when the patient contracted Covid-19.

One group experiences neurological symptoms including fatigue, brain fog and headache, which most often affect those who contracted the virus when the Alpha and Delta variants were most prevalent, according to experts at King's College London.

A second group suffers from respiratory issues, including chest pain and severe shortness of breath, which could point to lung damage. These symptoms were common among those infected during the first wave of the pandemic.

The final group has a diverse range of symptoms including heart palpitations, muscle ache and pain, and changes in skin and hair. These three sets of symptoms were seen in all variants, researchers added.

Two million people in the UK are estimated to be suffering from long COVID, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported in June, based on self-reports from a representative sample.

Of that two million:

To draw their conclusions, researchers studied 1,459 people living with long COVID who were taking part in the Zoe Health study and are still dealing with symptoms at least 12 weeks after infection.

Dr Claire Steves, clinical lead author from King's College London, said: "These data show clearly that post-COVID syndrome is not just one condition, but appears to have at several subtypes.

"Understanding the root causes of these subtypes may help in finding treatment strategies.

"Moreover, these data emphasise the need for long COVID services to incorporate a personalised approach sensitive to the issues of each individual."

Dr Liane Canas, another author of the study, added: "These insights could aid in the development of personalised diagnosis and treatment for these individuals."

According to the ONS, rates of long COVID are highest among women, those aged 35 to 69 years, people living in more deprived areas, those working in social care, teaching and education or health care, and those with other health conditions or disabilities.

In other words, cohorts of people who are most likely to be repeatedly exposed to the virus.

Governments and funders must prioritize research on emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases such as monkeypox to prevent another pandemic says Nature Medicine

In 2019, a little over 1,000 academic articles had been published on coronaviruses increasing to 250,000 articles 3 years later. What little research was carried out on coronaviruses between the time of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and COVID-19 unquestionably saved lives. Much more coronavirus research could and should have happened in the 15-year period after SARS — and now the same mistakes have been made with monkeypox.

Since the 1970s, monkeypox virus, an orthopoxvirus related to smallpox, has sporadically jumped from animals to humans, with most recorded cases in Western or Central Africa. Now that there are more than 3,400 new human cases of monkeypox in at least 40 countries (at the time of writing), and one death, research is finally accelerating, but many questions remain unanswered.

The lack of research on monkeypox, despite hundreds of cases and dozens of deaths annually, has left the world woefully unprepared for this global outbreak. Every zoonotic infection should be a cause for concern, but research funding seems to flow only when high-income countries are heavily affected.

Nature Medicine says Governments and funders are sleepwalking toward another pandemic unless they boost research and development (R&D) on emerging infections.

MHRA update on the situation surrounding the Philips V60, V60+ and V680 ventilators unexpected shutdown issue. The advice in the original National Patient Safety Alert on 29/03/22 has not been altered. Providers that are in the process of completing the actions detailed in the alert should continue to do so. 

Providers that have completed the required actions detailed in the MHRA alert are not required to take any further action at this time. However, providers should register with Philips for the corrective action prescribed in the Field Safety Notice (FSN).

Government has also published a summary of FSNs for the last week in July, here.

The Digital Social Care website was established in 2019 with funding from the NHS to provide support and engagement for the adult social care sector around the development and use of technology.

If you would like more information or can take part in an interview please get in touch with katie@digitalsocialcare.co.uk.

More than a million businesses now eligible for Help to Grow as software scheme receives a boost

Help to Grow: Digital Scheme eligibility expanded to businesses with at least one employee, meaning up to 1.2 businesses could benefit.

Care Quality Commission has been given new responsibilities under the Health and Care Act relating to reviewing and assessing local authorities and integrated care systems.  

These responsibilities will support delivery of the ambition set out in their strategy to provide independent assurance to the public of the quality of care in their area.

https://cqc.citizenlab.co/en-GB/folders/cqc-and-system-oversight 

The report shares important insight on the use of controlled drugs in health care and adult social care services.

The annual update draws on prescribing data, feedback from controlled drug local intelligence networks, and our wider inspection and regulatory work. The report will help people working with controlled drugs to strengthen the arrangements for their safe management and use.

Slideset from the latest Trade Association meeting with CQC includes:

And, have you changed recently, or are you going to change, your Registered Manager?

Might this change coincide with a potential inspection?

A warning from East of England where an outstanding care service has recently been downgraded to Requires Improvement for Well-led, because a Registered Manager had only been in post for eight weeks and had not yet had their interview with CQC (CQC's fault not the provider's).

With additional support from the operations manager and Responsible Person, there were no other negative factors to be taken into account. This appears to be grossly unfair judgement on an SME provider as nothing in the Regulations states a timescale for length of time in post. A clear downgrading is probable for no Registered Manager and/ or a delay in progressing recruitment.

Please refer to this helpful document co-produced by care associations and CQC to inform you of what a good inspection looks and feels like.

CQC are still inspecting on the basis of risk and have not had the new 'I' and 'we' statements signed off as yet.

Please forward any local CQC concerns to us ad as well as picking them up locally we will collate and CAA will take them to the fortnightly Trade Association meeting with CQC.

Calling Third Sector Social Care Providers | HEE-funded Peer Support offer for 3rd sector

This offer is available again this year. DHSC is seeking expressions of interest for this to be sent to the Wessex School of Public Health at HEE – WessexPublicHealthSchool.SE@hee.nhs.uk by Monday 5 September 2022.

The training will be delivered by With-you (see this flyer) who have been commissioned to deliver the PSW and Peer Supervisor Training. DHSC has asked the With-you Training Lead to attend a forthcoming Third Sector network meeting where they will be able to answer any questions you may have regarding the training [we don't have details of these DHSC networks but presume that Third Sector organisations are directly in contact].

For those who are interested in taking up this offer please answer the questions below to express your interest and return to WessexPublicHealthSchool.SE@hee.nhs.uk:

Three schemes paid for through WRRF to support the existing workforce and future recruitment.

Find out more below:

Care Friends candidates are 9x more likely to be hired than job board candidates and 50% less likely to leave in the first 6 months.

Alex Ruck-Keen has recorded a video providing an overview of how the LPS is relevant for care providers (primarily residential care providers), and what steps they need to be taking to ready themselves for LPS implementation.

The slides to which Alex refers to are here.

A series of training opportunities for care home staff from Immedicare over June, July and August including:

HMRC is offering 2 live webinars explaining the correct payment of the minimum wage in the care sector. 

Oxfordshire Apprenticeship Grant Scheme, part of OxLEP Skills’ newly-launched £1.7M Social Contract Programme.

Please come along to the launch webinar to find out more

Selective Licensing starts in Oxford City on 1 September.

Do you rent a property to your workforce? The Housing Act 2004 allows the Council to require any private rented homes within a specified area to have a licence (unless it falls under mandatory or additional Housing of Multiple Occupation licensing). The reason for selective licensing is to address problems like poor property conditions. The Selective Licensing scheme will come into effect on 1 September 2022 and end on 31 August 2027 at midnight.

Find out more at a face to face briefing:

This course is to enable Manual Handling Trainers to update their skills in a cost effective way in a convenient location by Edexcel accredited Manual Handling Trainers. This course is not just for qualified nurses. It will be held on

This course is only suitable for those who have already completed the full Train the Trainer course in Manual Handling (usually 4 or 5 days). This refresher will be scheduled again in 2 years’ time. Due to Covid it was not done last time.

Tea, coffee and water will be available. You may bring your own lunch, or lunch can be provided at £4 per person.

Please book your places through Richard Burden using this form.

Free electric blanket checks in Oxfordshire making sure your blanket is safe to use this winter.

To book your safety check call 01865 895999 option 3, or email duty.officer@oxfordshire.gov.uk

Each day, thousands of decisions are made across social care that shape and influence how we deliver care. The Adult Social Care Workforce Data Set (ASC-WDS) is an online data collection service and the leading source of workforce information for the adult social care sector in England. It holds information on over 20,000 care providing locations and 750,000 workers. Come to this session to see a tour of the site, find out how to set up an account and then how you can reap the benefits of your own data – running reports, analysing gaps, trends and challenges in relation to recruitment and retention in your service, accessing discounts on training and much more! This session will be led by Rachel Reid, Locality Manager from Skills for Care.

No need to book, please just come along using the links above, however, if you would like to be sent a calendar invite for these sessions please email rachel.reid@skillsforcare.org.uk

*The Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire RM networks are chaired by local RMs in each area and supported by Skills for Care. If you are a RM in the area and are not a member please email rachel.reid@skillsforcare.org.uk to join your local network. Each network meets a minimum of 3 times per year and has a WhatsApp group to enable you to keep in touch with your colleagues.

WellbeingLine@berkshire.nhs.uk

Oxfordshire Safeguarding Adults Board consultation line for professionals

The Data Security and Protection Toolkit (DSPT)

COVID-19 infection rates dashboard usually updated weekly:

The Oxfordshire Trusted Assessor service is closed and awaiting a decision by commissioners for recommissioning.

A service provision for Berkshire East is under discussion.

For Milton Keynes and Buckinghamshire, the Trusted Assessor Service is run for care homes only by Lincolnshire Care Association.

Contact: Michelle Yusuf -

Please raise these through the relevant Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS). All matters that go through PALS get raised at clinical governance in their particular area of expertise e.g. orthopaedics / LD etc, so it is imperative that any matters that need raising go through this route.

As well as a constant stream of questions and answers by email from around the country, we are also part of the CAA fortnightly teleconference on Wednesdays. This informs us of current concerns and potential solutions and helps inform our local communications.

We are mailing out once a week on a Wednesday, so you know when to look out for it. These updates will provide summary advice on emerging issues and signpost providers to government and other statutory agency advice as needed.

We are always keen to hear from providers, if you have anything you would like to share with provider colleagues, please send to the usual address.

Brilliant training! It was easily the best and most relevant training that I have ever had since I started work. It has had a massively positive effect on myself and the team - without it we would have suffered badly during the pandemic! | Amy Price - Cancer Nurse Specialist

Log My Care is accredited by NHSX as an ‘Assured Supplier’ for Digital Social Care Records.

With annually rising charges and continual changes in government legislation, we believe there’s a better, brighter way of managing your utilities over and above the habit of annual renewal.

We can help cut through the confusion; free you from the stresses of managing bills, chasing payments and validating invoices.

We can help you establish low-carbon, energy-efficient plans, delivering profound cost savings and helping to safeguard the environment for future generations.

Or contact us with colleague details who would like to be on the mailing list.

Remember to update us if you're moving on.