End of Life Care Newsletter

You can download  a copy of the January 2013 End of Life Newsletter from the link below:
Download.

Court of Protection Updates

The Court of Protection has released a new Newsletter for February 2013 which can be downloaded here.

There is also a consolidated list of updates from 2010 to date, which can be downloaded here, please be warned these files are quite large and may take some time to download.

Training Venue: Lowlands

When running training, we try when possible to use venues which are offered by Community Associations, to enable us to contribute towards economic growth within the community, information about our 'Lowlands' venue can be found below.

Lowlands - West Derby Community Association

 

Lowlands, home of the West Derby Community Association, is a beautiful Grade II-listed mansion house set in a rare Victorian city woodland garden. 

The building and its wonderful grounds provide an ideal venue for community groups

How to find Lowlands:

By Car:

When travelling from East/South Liverpool, follow the M62 West until the motorway ends, head North up Queens Drive until you reach Three Butt Lane. Turn right onto Three Butt Lane and continue to the end of the road. Turn right onto Eaton Road North and immediately left onto Hayman's Green. Lowlands West Derby Community Association can be found on your left.

When travelling from North/West Liverpool, travel East on West Derby Road until reaching Queens Drive, head North up Queens Drive until you reach Three Butt Lane. Turn right onto Three Butt Lane and continue to the end of the road. Turn right onto Eaton Road North and immediately left onto Hayman's Green. Lowlands West Derby Community Association can be found on your left.

Parking is available onsite but spaces are limited, on street parking is available in the immediate vicinity.

By Public Transport:

The following bus routes take you within walking distance of the venue, please refer to the Merseytravel site for details on times and bus stop locations. 

Bus Route            Coming From

62A                       Mossley Hill

18                          Liverpool, Mann Island

It is recommended if you plan to travel using Public Transport that you contact Travelline for extra information, particularly if weather conditions are not ideal. 0871 200 22 33.

Shops & Resources

There is a wide variety of shops and retail establishments available in the nearby West Derby Village.

Dementia Fund

LSCP has now begun claiming funding for the Workforce Development Dementia Fund (WDDF) which is available from Skills for Care.

In response to the Prime Minister’s dementia challenge, the Department of Health (DH) has commissioned Skills for Care to support the delivery of a national learning and development programme for the social care workforce supporting people with dementia.

Skills for Care will make £2.4million available to employers, to support the completion of relevant accredited qualifications by those members of the workforce who support people with Dementia. This funding is open to all adult social care employers who support people with dementia, whether this is in the early stages of diagnosis or following diagnosis of dementia.

The funding is offered as part of the Workforce Development Fund (WDF) and as such the WDF eligibility criteria apply. Click here to read more about the WorkforceDevelopment Fund.

How to Claim

First, you must meet the eligibility requirements set out in the Workforce Development Fund, once achieved, you must send copies of the certificates for each qualification you wish to claim. Enhanced payments will be paid out against this evidence as outlined in this document.

You must act today before our funding is reduced.

We understand that waiting for certificates to arrive can sometimes be a long process, and we are currently looking at other ways to ensure this funding can be claimed. If any member of your staff has recently completed any of the qualifications in the attached document, please contact me immediately and let me know your estimate of how many qualifications may be claimable.

It is critically important that we are aware of all potential claims so we can attempt to keep enough funding, without information about potential claims within your organisation we may lose part of our funding. Funding is distributed on a first come first serve basis, so any reduction in the amount of funding could result in your organisation missing out.

If you have any questions or queries regarding this fund, please do not hesitate to contact me.

John Callaghan

Administrator

Liverpool Social Care Partnership

5 De Havilland Drive,

C/O Crossroads Care

Estuary Business Park,

Speke, Liverpool

L24 8RN

0151-427-7044

Help & Guidance when Choosing your Training Provider

Choosing a Training Provider for your organisation can be a daunting and potentially expensive task. With the introduction of Workforce Development Funding, Social Care Employers and Training Providers must ensure that the correct evidence is being provided so that funding can be claimed for the Training taking place.

We have combined information from a number of Skills for Care documents to outline what you should know and what you should look out for before looking for a new Training Provider.

For links to download any documentation for Workforce Development Funding please click here.

Information for you as an employer

Funding Currently Available:

The Workforce Development Fund (WDF) for 2012-13 is a funding stream from the Department of Health disseminated by Skills for Care. It focuses on the achievement of qualification units and supports the ongoing professional development of staff across the adult social care sector.  The fund is distributed by Skills for Care via a network of employer led partnerships and large national organisations:

• An ‘Area or National partnership’ is a collection of social care employers who come together to ‘pool’ their workforce development needs.
• A ‘Large National’ organisation is a social care provider that operates in three or more Skills for Care areas of England. 

The fund can only be utilised by adult social care providers that employ social care staff within England.

Taken from 'Step by Step guide for Employers' - Skills for Care 2012-13

How do I become eligible for funding? 

There are three things that you must do before you become eligible for WDF:

1. Have joined a partnership by completing a partnership membership form and submitting to the lead partner. [For more information on how to complete a Partnership Form please refer to our earlier Blog Post by clicking here.]
2. Comply with NMDS-SC requirements or be prepared to complete this prior to claiming funding.
3. Have employees who are completing eligible Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF) units or NVQ units or QCF units against which you want to claim funding, [Click Here to] see the list of acceptable units.

Taken from 'Step by Step guide for Employers' - Skills for Care 2012-13

What is the National Minimum Data Set for Social Care (NMDS-SC)?

For advise on NMDS-SC, what it is and how to get started, we recommend you visit the website:

https://www.nmds-sc-online.org.uk/

Specifically, you can find the Help & Guidance section and the Frequently Asked Questions section.

NMDS-SC also have a specific helpline available for NMDS-SC related enquiries.

For specific information on what data fields must be completed to be eligible for Workforce Development Funding please click here.

Information for Choosing a Training Provider

As a social care employer it is essential to consider legal requirements and guidance from key bodies when planning appropriate training and development. These include:

• Care Quality Commission (formerly the Commission for Social Care Inspection) in relation to regulations, including national minimum standards
• [Health & Care Professionals Council, Formerly General Social Care Council] and their Codes of Practice
• Skills for Care (including Common Induction Standards for adult social care)

Training Grants & Apprenticeships

Many Training Providers are able to offer courses either part-funded or fully-funded, this funding may come a variety of sources or may be part of an Apprenticeship Scheme.

Apprenticeships are open to all employees who wish to further their continued professional development by completed a Quality Credit Framework qualification. An Apprenticeship also uses any 'on-the-job' learning you may do towards earning your qualification.

Skills for Care has published documentation on Intermediate and Advanced Apprenticeships and also Higher Apprenticeships.

Even if your course is fully funded, you may be entitled to Workforce Development Funding

WDF is for Social Care Employers, and Skills for Care recognises that the cost of a course is not the only expense to consider when training your staff, you may incur costs for paying a member of staff whilst they study, or paying another member of staff to cover shifts which your employees are studying. These are legitimate costs that can be recouped via the WDF. This funding is often referred to as 'backfill funding'.

The method for claiming funding for these 'backfill' costs, is very similar as outlined above, however it is advised that any organisation intending to claim backfill funding keep a tight audit trail of funds, as you are not allowed to make any profit from this funding, and any funds you receive should be justified by relevant costs. Skills for Care will not ask to see this audit trail, it is for your records & protection.

Collecting Evidence

Unit Summary Sheets are the industry standard for Quality Control and evidencing that training has been Assessed and Verified correctly. City in Guilds state in their guidance:

[Unit Summary Sheet] Form used on completion of each unit to meet the Ofqual requirement for a statement on authenticity. If this form is not used, there must be a written declaration, at unit level, signed by the assessor and the candidate, that the evidence is authentic and that the assessment was conducted under the specified conditions or context. (See Supporting Customer Excellence Centre Manual.)

Evidence collection should be outlined in the intial training agreement

To prevent any further costs, it is a good idea for employers to discuss and finalise any costs relating to the supply of Unit Summary Sheets, as it is a requirement for the completion of units. Some Training Providers charge on a per Unit Summary Sheet basis, to cover administration costs, if this is not outlined in the training agreement it may result in the training costing much more than expected.

Not all 'Unit Summary Sheets' will look the same, Skills for Care has templates which Training Providers may choose to use, however bespoke documentation will also be accepted, providing that the following key information is present:

• ƒCandidate name
• Candidate registration number
• Name of Awarding Organisation
• Name of Training Provider or Centre number
• Unit code
• Unit title
• Verifier date
• Verifier signature (has to be dated between 1 January 2012 and 31 March 2013)

Evidence can be sent by Post, or Email

When sending in evidence relating to a claim it is important to make it clear which establishment the evidence belongs to. As the Unit Summary Sheets contain only the information of the candidate, and nothing relating to the employer, sending an unmarked envelope with no record of which organisation they belong to will result in those units not being claimed.

It is advised that you either:

• Write the name of the organisation on each sheet
• Include organisation information and attach firmly (staple, paper-clips would not be deemed acceptable)
• Email from an organisation address

For this reason, we prefer not to accept units by FAX, as often the quality of the document is too poor to be claimed and the risk of organisational information being separated from the unit is too high.

Questions & Comments

If you would like to get in touch with Liverpool Social Care Partnership to answer any questions to comments please feel free to email the team on admin@lscpinfo.co.uk or give us a call on 0151 427 7044.