Partnership working with Blackpool BC

LCA have been given a Continuity Plan/ Emergency plan template by Blackpool BC to help providers in the Blackpool area pull together their own Continuity Plans. To see the document click here. We hope to include continuity planning on the agenda of the annual Blackpool workshop. Also nb, LCA is running a workshop for LCC homes (the fourth ‘Learning Together’ workshop) on Thursday 16th July 2009. Blackpool members who contract with LCC are eligible for this free seminar (with free lunch!). The flier will be out soon. 

Also, Paul Simic is continuing his joint visits to randomly selected care homes in Blackpool with Cllr Henderson and colleagues. The aim is to help ensure a dialogue between care providers and the local council’s politicians who make key decisions about the allocation of budgets. There needs to be, in the midst of the current economic gloom, some clear and enthusiastic vision about care in Blackpool as an important part of the civic and commercial life of Blackpool and a dialogue between those commissioning care and those providing it about the make up of the market and the direction of travel for that market as belts tighten but aspirations continue to rise.

We are aware that there is an ever-growing gap between fees in the LCC area and Blackpool while at the same time the local authority themselves note that, on the one hand, they have no shortage of placements, and on the other, they have a good set of LAMA statistics (the measures by which local authorities are judged by government). The national settlement is poor this year and LCA find the 1% uplift for care homes and 0% for domiciliary care unacceptable.