Annandale & Eskdale Forum

Tuesday 29th September 2015, Lockerbie Town Hall, 1-3pm.

Attendees:

Alzheimer Scotland / Paula Cochrane
Annandale Transport Initiative / Janet Saunders
D&G Citizens Advice Annan / Brenda Waugh
D&G HandyVan/SRHSS / Carol Neilson
Dumfries and Galloway Hard of Hearing Group / Dennis Arnold
Food Train / Helen McAnespie
Lochmaben & District Community Initiative / Howard Baisden
Lochmaben Community Council / Tony Hancock
Lockerbie Dryfesdale, Hutton and Corrie Church of Scotland / Sandy Stoddart
Lockerbie in Bloom / Catherine Lacey
Lockerbie Old School Project / Jackie Moffat
Mossburn Community Farm / Mossburn Community Farm
SHAP / Liz Forsyth
Youth Scotland / Susan Pollock

In attendance:

A&E Area Lead, TS D&G / Abi Roberts
A&E Forum Convener, TS D&G / Eileen Usher
CEO, TS D&G / David Coulter
Policy, Research & Community Planning Officer, TS D&G / Hayley McGowan
Social Work Liaison Officer, TS D&G / Shona Jessup

Annandale & Eskdale Convener Eileen Usher started off discussions by talking about the last forum and reinforced the message of the third sector working better together.

Gary Sheehan, Health & Social Care Integration Locality Manager for Annandale & Eskdale delivered a presentation to the forum. Main points:

-The formal consultation process for the Annandale & Eskdale Locality Plan istaking placefor an 8 week period starting in mid-October through to mid-December. The Integration team are looking for people to identify what they think might be missing from the plan and whether it reflects third sector priorities

-A series of public meetings will be held across Annandale and Eskdaleand we will be inviting individuals and groups to provide their views on the plan in a variety of ways

-We need to be thinking more creatively about how we use resources, with an increasingly larger ageing population and less working age population e.g. looking at sharing resources and assets such as empty buildings

-Some of the issues related to integrating health and social care include the difficulty of attracting people to working in home care and the shortage of GP’s not just locally but nationally

Some good points were raised in questions for Gary including:

-Having access to information and communication about consultations

-Discussion around a ‘ local community champion’ role – in Annandale & Eskdale this is similar to the roles of the Community Link Workers

-The use of community transport and utilising the skills and enthusiasm of volunteers to help with delayed discharges

-Alzheimer Scotland offered to help with reaching people with dementia and their families in respect of the consultation

Shona Jessop, Third Sector Social Work Liaison Officer, gave a presentation on Adult Support and Protection (ASP), including the importance of staff and volunteers working in the third sector knowing where to go to refer an adult they thought could be vulnerable. This opened up a useful discussion on the experiences of third sector organisations when dealing with ASP issues.

Shona is at the early stages of an ASP scoping exercise to understand the level of awareness and knowledge of ASP in the third sector. Shona is the third sector representative on the Adult Protection Committee, and is working with the Lead Officer for ASP on this.

Eileen Usher thanked everyone for taking the time to attend the forum.

Actions:

-a ‘special’ meeting again to respond to the Locality Plan consultation together as a forum

-Hayley to upload Shona’s PowerPoint slides to Third Sector, D&G website