Bulky waste
Due to resource issues, we cannot take bulky waste phone calls today. The phone line will be open again at 9:30am on 22 April. We apologise for any inconvenience.
Working in partnership to deliver good health and wellbeing outcomes for adults.
Rob Persey, Executive Director, Health & Adult Social Care
Councillor Bruno De Oliveira, Chair of Health & Wellbeing Board
Councillor Tristram Burden, Chair of Adult Social Care, Public Health Sub-committee
The last Health & Adult Social Care Annual Report was published in 2018, and the world now seems like a very different place. After a long period of no overall control, May 2023 saw the election of a new Labour administration with a working majority.
We welcome Councillor Bruno De Oliveira as Chair of the Health & Wellbeing Board and Councillor Tristram Burden as Lead Member for Adult Services, both of whom have considerable experience in health, wellbeing and the Adult Social Care sector.
We say a huge thanks to our health and care workforce, carers and volunteers, who have delivered extraordinary service to the city’s most vulnerable residents. They have greatly enhanced the chances of a healthy long life for the local population these past 5 years.
Through a pandemic that presented unprecedented challenges, and the ongoing cost of living crisis, we have seen lasting impacts on the demand and delivery of health and social care in our city. Demand has increased, especially where meeting the mental health needs of our residents and more generally the cost of delivering services has also increased. Despite this and thanks to our staff, stakeholders, service providers and the partners with whom we work so closely in our communities, we continue to deliver good quality services through even these most challenging times.
It deserves emphasising that we couldn’t have done this without our partners within the council, our care and support providers and the voluntary sector and NHS. Whether enhancing recovery from alcohol and drug dependency, working with us in multi-disciplinary teams to address multiple compound needs, or providing prescribing and befriending across the city, the partners we work with have risen to these challenging times. They have worked so hard to continue delivering care and support services, enhancing independence in an inclusive and accessible way.
Our thanks goes to each and every one of you, but there is no room for complacency. Considerable challenges remain and finding solutions becomes even more essential. This is to ensure sustainable good quality Public Health and Adult Social Care support to some of the most vulnerable individuals and communities that we serve.
The future holds a lot in store. Recently, the Care Quality Commission announced that they would start inspecting local authority health and social care departments. We welcome the scrutiny and see it as a valuable opportunity to learn more about what we’re doing in the city and where there’s room to grow.
We present this latest Annual Report as a statement of the progress we have made and equally an acknowledgement of so much more to do and outline the approach for moving forward.
Working together with key partners to provide a range of care and support to meet people’s needs.
We have:
We will:
90.1% people satisfied with services
(2022 to 2023 User Experience Survey)
Changing Futures aims to create an environment where individuals experiencing multiple disadvantage can receive flexible, trauma informed, person-centred support when they need it. This leads to increased periods of stability and more opportunities to make positive changes in their lives.
The Changing Futures Multi-Disciplinary team is made up of workers from:
The team supports people who experience three or more of the following:
Diana, a participant from Changing Futures said “If I didn’t have the amazing professionals working with me that I do at the moment, I wouldn’t be where I am.”
You can:
Providing information and advice to ensure people are aware of their options, so they can get the right help at the right time.
We have:
67.4% of service users easily find information about support
(2022 to 2023 User Experience Survey)
Easy read is a way of presenting written information to make it easier to understand for people with difficulty reading. Easy read materials use sentences of no more than 10 to 15 words, written in plain English, and with images to illustrate the key points.
Speak Out is an independent advocacy charity in Brighton & Hove that gives people with learning disabilities an opportunity to speak up and take action about the things that matter to them. Speak Out, AMAZE and the Carers Centre are key partners on the Learning Disability Partnership Board, which oversees progress on the Adults Learning Disability Strategy.
Members of the Speak Out LINK group, recently co-designed the new easy-read pages on the council website.
A member of Speak Out said "The Link Group enjoyed working with the Information and Advice working group, to review the council’s new accessible webpages. They were particularly happy that their feedback was acted upon - the customer service phone number was made easier to find on each page, and a button was created to give people options and support to increase text size and enable screen readers."
We will:
You can:
Did you know:
Helping people to be as healthy as possible, and managing the impact of long term health conditions.
We have:
Providing accessible and free cooking workshops, in the foodbank community garden.
New skills, recipe ideas, cooking with accessible and low-cost items, to improve nutrition and wellbeing in households locally.
We will:
Participants from the Yoga Well Being group said “yoga has changed my life, I never realised how powerful it could be in helping me to recharge and sleep" and “I think Yoga has reduced my blood pressure as it’s the only thing I’ve introduced into my routine recently, and my blood pressure reading has significantly reduced.”
You can:
Supporting people to access their communities, reduce social isolation and maintain an active life.
We have:
A participant from Dance Active said “I am so glad I came to your session today. I danced when I was younger, back in the 60’s, but thought I was too old now. Today has changed my opinion on this and I will be moving again going forward.”
In June 2023, the TAKEPART Festival returned with a launch event at the Level, starting a week of over 70 free community events and activities promoting the wide variety of sports and physical activity opportunities in the city. In collaboration with Speak Out and Amaze we introduced a quiet hour during the launch event and raised awareness of learning disability inclusion throughout the festival.
One volunteer from Speak Out said the event was “Amazing! Everything was amazing.”
Marilyn Chelliah said: “The programme has provided myself and my staff with tools we can now use in assisting our customers who are living with dementia. It’s given us the understanding to help others and ensure they have a pleasurable experience. My ambition has always been for the café to be a hub for the community - so this new age and dementia-friendly status is the icing on the cake for us all.’’
Ed Wills, Managing Director of Brighton & Hove Buses and Metrobus, said: “We are pleased to support the council in their mission to make Brighton & Hove an age and dementia-friendly city. We make travel by bus as accessible as possible. That’s why we have invested in dementia-friendly floors, next-stop audio-visual announcements and trained our drivers to be dementia friends. ”
We will:
You can:
Working with providers to ensure local people receive good quality, safe services, and feel in control.
We have:
85.2% of service users say our services made them feel safe and secure
(2022 to 2023 User Experience Survey)
The Community Equipment Service, jointly funded with the NHS, provides training about equipment for carers, employability workshops and placements - raising community awareness of how to access equipment.
The service promotes the recycling and reuse of equipment by working with partners, including the Fire Service. Equipment is delivered to people by a fleet of electric vans reducing emissions in the city.
The service is developing the facility for customers to be able to track service requests online from a smart device.
A local resident said “I am very, very grateful for the help I continue to receive from my local Council, and the health service, and wish to thank everybody involved! I feel confident with their work and their aftercare. Especially with the 24/7 help available if the bed/ hoist breaks.”
84.6% of people who use services felt in control of their daily lives
We will:
Seona Douglas, Independent Chair, Brighton & Hove Safeguarding Adults Board said “We continue to work in partnership to meet our strategic priorities, and to achieve improved outcomes in adult safeguarding, that benefit those who use services and those who care for them.”
We will:
84.6% of people who use services felt in control of their daily lives
CareLink Plus is the council’s telecare alarm system, offering a range of services and equipment that allow you to call for help in an emergency. This could be in and outside the home. Telecare can increase your independence and help you to feel safe.
A member of the Carelink team said: "EL’s daughter thanked us for getting the ambulance so promptly for her mum back in February. She had sepsis and the paramedics got to her in 18 mins and managed to save her life. The family are very grateful for everything we do."
You can:
Supporting carers to maintain their caring role and to have a life outside of caring.
We have:
From 2018 to 2023 the quarterly average contacts with carers at the Carers Hub, has increased from 1,000 to nearly 7,000 per quarter
The Carers Hub is a partnership of three local charities and local authority assessment staff, who have joined together to create a focal point for unpaid carers, to provide the information and support they need.
The Hub aims to improve the quality of life of carers in Brighton & Hove by offering them a wide range of services and comprehensive local resources including:
Putting Carer satisfaction is at the heart of everything they do.
Go to the Carers Hub website or phone 01273 977 000.
The 2021 Census data identified that there are 20,804 unpaid carers in the city, 1 in 12 of the population. With many carers providing over 50 hours per week
We will:
We are working with carers to develop the Carer Friendly Blueprints, which will include:
We will:
We will:
The estimated economic contribution of carers nationally is £162 billion per year nearly the same as the total England NHS budget
You can get advice and support for unpaid carers in Brighton & Hove on the Carers Hub website or phone 01273 977 000.
Everyone should feel included and valued. We want to remove barriers that exclude people from services and prevent them from succeeding because of their identity, background or circumstances.
Our city consists of different populations living in a range of geographical communities.
The most up to date data from the census shows:
We have:
We will:
Trust for Developing Communities Research
The Trust for Developing Communities undertook some research in December 2022 exploring the views held by culturally and ethnically diverse communities of Health & Adult Social Care Services.
We heard:
We have:
We will:
You can:
We welcome feedback from our partners.
Over the past 12 months our Brighton & Hove Health & Care Partnership has been focused on the delivery of our Place-based priorities. This has included delivering the recommendations of the new Mental Health & Wellbeing Joint Strategic Needs Assessment. It also includes our work to improve health and social outcomes for people in the city with multiple compound needs around:
We have been working to reduce Health Inequalities through the new NHS Core20Plus5 programme targeting five mandatory clinical areas, the 20% most deprived local areas and addressing specific local health inequality areas.
Over the coming 12 months our new Placebased Health & Care Partnerships will focus on supporting the Sussex Integrated Care Strategy’s aim for Integrated Community Teams. This will be the model for transforming local health and care services, and providing a joined up community approach.
Using our independence, Healthwatch has worked in partnership with the council to improve health and social care outcomes. We have captured resident’s views on the equipment adaptations service, about the Home Care support they receive and continued to Chair the Safeguarding Adult’s Review Board. Our evaluation of local services has been used to deliver continuous improvement. We have also brought external scrutiny to the Council Boards we attend.
A member of staff at Healthwatch said “This year, we are pleased to see the publication of two important strategies that commit the city to delivering improvements to reduce suicide rates/self-harm and support people with autism. We also welcome the focus on improving support around mental health and support for carers."
Another member of staff at Healthwatch said “Moving forward, delivering on plans to better integrate services across the city will be vital as the city addresses pressures caused by reduced budgets and workforce shortages.”
The examples throughout this report demonstrate how closely Health and Adult Social Care work with voluntary and community organisations (VCS), targeted at specific groups like carers or with multiple partners in the Learning Disability Partnership.
The support through working with Ageing Well and Changing Futures also highlights the range of Voluntary and Community organisations HASC work in partnership with around areas of development.
The commitment to understanding what the VCS can offer as well as hearing from the VCS as experienced partners in development, and with understanding of how delivery is experienced by the local population, is valued.
We look forward to future partnership development and collaborating on how best our approaches can support local populations experiencing unprecedented need.
Thank you to everyone involved in the development of this report.