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Articles by Ralph Cook
Welcome to ‘the Age of Intermediate Care’
By Iain MacBeath and Ralph Cook | 28 April 2021 With increasing levels of frailty in our aging population, and higher expectations that people will want to go home rather than to care homes, this should be the era of the physiotherapist and occupational therapist, complemented with integrated nursing and care services and the latest technology. It is time for us to enter what our new report calls ‘the Age of Intermediate Care’.
Managing demand – it’s all about outcomes | IMPOWER
There is sometimes an assumption that demand management is a simply a way of diverting people away from local authority funded services in order to save money. However, while it is a key lever for improving financial sustainability, creating better outcomes for residents is fundamental to the way we approach demand management at IMPOWER. The savings we are most interested in are those that result from improving outcomes.
Guest blogpost: Matt Clayton, NE Lincs
Guest blogpost written by Matt Clayton, Group Manager Safer at North East Lincolnshire Council Whilst many local authorities have been delivering online support, advice and guidance for some time, Covid-19 has forced North East Lincolnshire council to accelerate and widen this approach. Over the last two years, North East Lincolnshire has faced significant challenges in relation to rising demand and our ability to protect the most vulnerable.
MCA briefing: impact of Covid-19 on public services
Yesterday, I joined an online briefing session facilitated by the Management Consultancies Association (MCA) on the impact of Covid-19. I spoke about the impact on the health and local government sectors, and share an expanded overview of my thoughts here. The good news is that there is some good news, so I will start with that. As a result of this crisis, we have already seen significant improvements to ways of working, particularly in the level of integration between health and social care.
Councils must help businesses to be bold
To aid local economic recovery, businesses must be given freedom to diversify From the outset, it was clear that the impact of Covid-19 on businesses large and small was going to be huge. But in the midst of enormous challenges (and the announcement of equally enormous government support packages) one of the undeniably positive developments has been the number of businesses coming up with new ways to survive.
Maintaining performance
By Ralph Cook | 25 February 2020 We still don’t know how the Prime Minister intends to ‘fix’ social care, so being able to evidence current performance is vitally important for the sector. Without this, politicians could point at perceived or actual variability in the system as a reason not to substantially increase funding.
A plea to councils: put behaviour change at the heart of transformation
I joined the LGA’s ‘Behaviour Change’ conference this week (‘Nudges for Social Good – Using Behavioural Insights in Local Government’). I was there to share our impact in Ealing through the Better Lives programme, and in particular how applied behavioural science has led to a massive 39% reduction in referrals from the front door to adult social care teams. This has had a huge impact on staff and residents in Ealing.
Resilience is largely irrelevant. Local government needs to focus on productivity
The recent LGC article (‘Divisions over resilience index but officers open to new approach’) raises some interesting questions about how performance should be measured. Rob Whiteman’s comment that CIPFA’s index has received a “mixed response” reflects the general mood music that I picked up at this year’s CIPFA conference. It is clearly important to have some visibility over when an authority is likely to run out of road financially, at both a local level and within wider local government.
Winning at the South West ADASS annual conference
Waking up the day after England’s exit last week, my first thought was that the concept of winning the World Cup would remain just that, and my second was that it was the day of the South West ADASS (Association Directors of Adult Social Services) annual conference, supported by RiPfA (Research in Practice for Adults). Keep reading, and you’ll find out why my mind made that connection. Demand management was the theme of the day.
This time it's personal – making personalised care real | iMPOWER
My colleagues and I recently met Jackie Kennedy and her labrador, Kingston, at a King’s Fund conference about the increasing personalisation of care. Jackie was a police officer who was attacked during a criminal incident, leaving her wheelchair-bound and with life-changing head injuries. Her experience of health services during her recovery was not always positive.
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