Growth and development.pdf

Argyll & Bute• provision for short respite breaks and improved care management; and• increased diversity and community-based provision for users of traditional day centres.The specialist NHS team and generic social work teams work jointly on learning disability services.However, access to treatment is limited; a half psychiatrist post and one psychologist do notstretch far over the dispersed communities. Involving groups of service users and carers hasproved slow and time-consuming, given the geography of the area.Mental health services are in a similar state of development but have been assisted by theextension of joint working, notably in the refurbishment of Argyll and Bute Hospital. Thepracticalities of redistributing resources throughout dispersed communities are still beingworked out. Imaginative use of community psychiatric nurses and mental illness specific grantfunding have developed community-based mental health services in Bute, Cowal, mid-Argyll,Kintyre and Lorne.The Thomson Court Dementia Resource won the 2001 Community Care award in the mentalhealth category. It provides residential, day and outreach care for people with dementia andincludes a reminiscence room with a 1940s parlour, a sensory garden, a community laundryservice, a bathing service and a 24-hour carers help-line. Users and carers were involved in theplanning and are now participating in the operation.Carenap E has been adopted as the single shared assessment tool. To prepare for its introduction:• joint protocols and procedures are being developed;• training is planned;• assessors identified;• simple, complex and specialist assessments agreed; and• budgets devolved to area level, to be the responsibility of locality managers.Work is however needed on information sharing and IT systems and equipment.Some 3000 people with a sensory impairment are scattered throughout Argyll and Bute.Specialist social work staff are involved in future needs assessments. They also deliver anextensive programme of sensory awareness training. Specialist interpreting services arepurchased from Deaf Communications. Joint working takes place at an operational level.The Council and its health partners now have a joint management structure with a high-leveljoint strategy manager to drive the Joint Future agenda in 2002-2003.There are already a number of joint posts, such as an island co-ordinator in Mull and islands’development worker. The partners are taking an evolutionary approach to joint managementand joint resourcing of services.35