‘Your life, your choice – working together towards the life you want’

This is our Vision for people who use Adult Social Care Services in Bexley. We prioritise personalised care and support options, working together collaboratively, and through co-production with people who use services, to ensure we offer people choice, and incorporate the voice of the person in all that we do.
 

We believe that everyone has the right to good health and good quality, personalised care, and support. We prioritise social inclusion and want people living in Bexley to be healthy, happy, and resilient and have access to high quality services if they are needed. We are committed to ensuring that Bexley continues to be a place that supports and enables positive health and wellbeing.

Housing is a priority and we believe everyone should have the opportunity to live in their own home. We want the people who use Bexley’s care services to have a positive experience of the care they receive. Good health and wellbeing is in everyone’s interest. It is everyone’s responsibility and requires everyone to play their part.

Bexley is moving towards a new pathway for adult social care where communities are supported to play their part in a person’s care journey, providing care and support to our residents in a preventative way, supporting people to be independent for as long as possible, focussing on their strengths and assets. Clearly accessible information and advice to enable people to make informed decisions will be central to this. We are working closely with providers and the voluntary and community sector to create sustainable pathways for people to be as independent as possible.

The Council’s role in directly purchasing care and support for people is reducing. To allow people more choice and control over the care and support they receive by purchasing services themselves, the use of personal budgets and direct payments is increasing. This will require more diversity and flexibility from care providers, who must understand the needs of individuals as well as community provision. In line with the government white paper ‘People at the Heart of Care’, people who fund their own care will also be able to ask the Council to commission it for them and we therefore want to work with providers to understand the needs of this cohort.

As demand and need for social care services continues to rise, the market simultaneously faces unprecedented pressure from a range of current inflationary influences affecting the economy nationally. Workforce retention and recruitment is an ongoing challenge with increased competition from hospitality and the retail sectors which pay more competitively. Providers will therefore need to be innovative in their approaches going forward whilst maintaining the core principles of prevention, independence and integration to achieve good health, care and  wellbeing outcomes for our population.

Services which offer information, advice and guidance are integral to preventing health and social care needs from increasing. The Council places a high priority on enabling easy access to information - providers are therefore asked to incorporate this in all their offers.

Our vision is for every resident to have good health, care and support. This includes supporting people to live independently and with dignity in their community and ensuring they can live long, fulfilling, and meaningful lives with their friends, family and networks.