An NHS trust has rejected an offer made by Wirral Council to extend a £10m social care contract by one year to 2024.
The Wirral Community Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust (WCHCFT) said the offer was rejected due to “perceived risk to the Trust” and has requested the council consider extending the contract by five years, according to a council report.
In 2017, Wirral Council signed two contracts with the WCHCFT and the Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS trusts (CWP) moving 332 frontline, social worker, and managerial staff in the process.
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The contracts outsourced the assessment of people needing social care or support services to both NHS trusts though the council is still responsible for how the services perform. This includes safeguarding, mental health assessments and professional case management.
Social care is in place for anyone struggling to perform some day-to-day tasks as a result of age, illness, disability or a significant change in someone’s life. Wirral is one of the worst-performing council areas in the North West for quality of social care, with many care homes requiring improvement. Councillors said they wanted to see progress as well as more transparency so standards begin to improve.
Councillors agreed in October to extend both contracts to avoid causing anxiety among care staff over their jobs that could lead to more care staff leaving the service. This was rejected in December by WCHCFT.
The council argues the extension period was to allow the council to develop how it would move any social care service in-house “while maintaining the best aspects of integrated provision” under the current contract. A review of whether to return the services under the Council instead of being outsourced to the NHS found “at times, the Council’s priorities were not reflected in the trusts” though councillors felt bringing the services under council control wouldn’t necessarily make them better.
WCHCFT said “its focus is on service quality and the ability to continue to deliver services safely” but has concerns about “the integrity of the Trust’s relationship with the Council.” The NHS trust said it also has concerns about “the integrity of the integrated service quality and safety” and “the continued recruitment and retention of social care staff.”
There are three options being considered by councillors. One, which would take up the NHS trust’s offer to extend the contract to September 2027. The other two would require WCHCFT to comply with a 12 month notice period or accept the trust’s shorter notice period and transfer all staff by the beginning of April in less than three months.
Moving staff and services under the council’s direct control by April would be “a very tight deadline” which the council might not be able to deliver, according to the report. As the Council didn’t agree to end the contract earlier, the report said a decision by WCHCFT to end the contract by April “would be in breach of the contractual requirement.”
Councillors will debate the three options on January 11.
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