Our vision for day services: Enabling great lives

The Council’s vision for Adult Social Care is to support people to live great lives, by building on each person’s own abilities and strengths. For people with a learning disability and/or neurodivergent people, the Council wants to provide support that enables people to develop greater independence over time, to help them achieve their maximum potential and reach their goals and aspirations. To do this, the Council would like to provide a more innovative and personalised day care service that promotes people having greater choice and control over the day services they receive.

Although our vision for this service has been coproduced and based on what people are telling us they would like from a service, we need to consider the situation that most local authorities currently face.

Like other authorities, Cheshire West and Chester is seeing increasing demand in people needing help and support, meaning that our budgets are being stretched. The Council is also facing an estimated funding gap of £47 million over the next four years, so we need to take a fresh approach to the way we deliver services to make sure we are prioritising funding where it can have the greatest impact.

The Council is trying to find cost-effective solutions that will still support the needs of its residents who are eligible for services under the Care Act 2014.

Our new model for day services will use the following principles to make sure we offer services that are centred around each person, are cost-effective, continue to offer choice and opportunities and provide value for money.

• Having the right preventative services in place to support adults with learning disabilities and/or neurodivergent people, to reduce the need for more costly crisis services.
• Getting the best value for money for day services that we commission or ‘buy in’ from different organisations, to make sure services are delivered at the best possible price.
• Using technology, where appropriate, to make it easier for people to access our services.
• Considering how we can make better use of Council buildings, so that they are being used for a range of different purposes, helping to reduce the overall number of buildings we need.
• Making greater use of the things that are already available in the community.

Developing our vision for future services together

The Council is committed to working with the people that use services to make sure they reflect what people want, while achieving value for money. As part of the day services review, we have worked in equal partnership with a group of people with lived experience, and their family members, carers and providers, to develop a vision for the future of day services.

• In July 2023, a group of people who currently use day services, those who don’t currently use day services but may want to in future, and their family and carers, were invited to take part in sessions to help design what future day services might look like. These were facilitated by Cheshire Disabled People’s Panel, which is made up of representative organisations of disabled people in Cheshire. This group shared their thoughts and feelings about day services, what they mean to them and the importance of having a wide range of activities, which allows them to:
  • meet new friends, new people and socialise
  • watch concerts, shows and films
  • join in with music, Makaton choirs and drama sessions
  • join in with sports sessions, like swimming and ten pin bowling
  • go to discos or eat out
  • join in with creative sessions, like arts and crafts
  • work and volunteer in places such as cafés, on farms, with animals or in an office.
• In August 2023, we also invited providers of day services to attend a session to provide their thoughts on the services they deliver.
• Following these sessions, five people with lived experience and their carers, five providers and five people from the Council, were invited to form a coproduction group. The purpose of the coproduction group was to take the feedback and work together to produce a model of what future day services could look like.
• In September 2023, the ideas of the coproduction group were shared at the Learning Disability Conference, attended by 150 people with learning disabilities and/or neurodivergent people. These ideas were supported at the conference.
• Through the coproduction process, people with lived experiences and their family and carers told us the things that were important to them when accessing day services. These included:
  • being able to access services in the daytime, but also in the evenings and at the weekend
  • having a building or centre as a base with activities and days out planned from there
  • having the choice of a wide range of activities, including being able to learn new skills.

Linked to these views was a suggestion to change the name of day services to:

‘Community activities’ – where I can choose activities, grow, learn, make friends and have fun.

Other things which were important to people were:

• having support with transport to access services
• knowing what activities are available and how to access them
• having a choice of payment options.

A report of the findings and recommendations from the coproduction sessions can be found in easy read format here and standard format here.