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Kate KennallyHow we are ensuring housing is part of the health and social care agenda
Housing is a key element in the jigsaw that is social care and health. Kate Kennally explains how Cornwall Council is ensuring the housing sector has a seat at the table
As part of our Healthy Cornwall priority, Cornwall Council is playing a leading role in exploring ways of achieving a transformation of care, health and wellbeing across Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.
The need to do so, and with urgency, was underlined by a recent study undertaken by Healthwatch Cornwall – the independent champion for people who use health and social care services – conveying the negative experiences of patients and families involved in the transfer of care from Cornwall’s hospitals.
It underlines the importance of supporting people to remain independent and enabling them to get the care they need in the best place for them, ideally at home where possible.
This is why leaders of the health and social care system are supporting a project called Embrace Care to look at how we can make this a reality.
A key to success is empowering our clinicians, social care practitioners and people who use our services to work as one across the health and care system to overcome organisational boundaries.
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Critical to achieving this is the role that the council and our housing association partners play in ensuring there is good quality, affordable homes that meet the needs of people who use health and social care services.
We know that the right home environment is essential to health and wellbeing, throughout life. Our homes are the cornerstones of our lives and impact on our wellbeing, risk of disease, and demands on health and care services. We need warm, safe and secure homes to help us to lead healthy, independent lives and to recover from illness.
This makes a strong argument for extending integration of services to embrace the housing sector as well as health and social care. In Cornwall, we have committed to a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that establishes collaborative working arrangements between Cornwall Council, health partners and housing providers.
The MoU will allow us to explore opportunities to align priorities, develop a shared language and common approach in order to achieve common outcomes and to develop joint solutions from the wider perspectives of public health, housing and health, with an emphasis on prevention and early intervention.
The housing sector is well placed to make a contribution to the integration agenda, as people and communities are at the heart of what the sector does.
Not only can we work with health and social care to deliver new homes that meet identified needs, whether it be extra care housing, independent supported living or wheelchair-accessible housing, we also deliver a range of initiatives that build communities, encourage social inclusion and promote health and wellbeing.
This is a role that we, as a sector, often do not promote enough. This means that it does not gain the visibility it deserves.
The imperatives to deliver transformational change are evident: there is an unprecedented financial challenge in delivering health and social care services, set alongside significant demographic changes that are leading to increased demand.
"The true transformation of social care, health and housing services will mean that the three sectors have aligned priorities, strong leadership and pooled budgets that facilitate integrated working"
Yet these are not the factors that drive many of the people who work in these fields: our staff care about the people they work with and about giving them the best opportunity to lead a meaningful and quality life.
The true transformation of social care, health and housing services will mean that the three sectors have aligned priorities, strong leadership and pooled budgets that facilitate integrated working. The people accessing services will be able to exercise choice and control, and will have higher satisfaction with better outcomes. And staff will be able to deliver solutions that are person-centered, seamless and responsive.
Housing is not a ‘sticking plaster’ to the pressures that health and social care need to address. They are a fundamental partner essential to delivery of true transformation.
The first step is for housing to gain a seat at the integration table, and in Cornwall the MoU has provided this opportunity.
The bigger challenge though, against a backdrop of financial pressure, ‘black alerts’ and operational challenges, is to carve out the time to fully understand each other, to identify the real issues and to think creatively about shared solutions that put people at the centre of service delivery.
Without doubt there is a long way to go to make this vision a reality. But we are on a journey towards creating a system that works together for people, and housing must be part of this vision.
Kate Kennally, chief executive, Cornwall Council
