CARE & SUPPORT WEST SPRING CONFERENCE SUCCESS

Again Care and Support West kicked off the conference season with our Spring conference back in mid-April. The venue this year was Ashton Court Mansion in the beautiful surrounds of the Ashton Court estate and the focus of the day was on Collaboration, Partnership and Working Together in order to deliver the best services we can.

We were very pleased to have My Home Life (http://myhomelife.org.uk/) co-host the conference with us. My Home Life is a UK wide initiative that promotes quality of life and positive change for people living in care homes and Tom Owen (role) proved a very effective co-ordinator on the day.

We had key note speakers from each of the four different Local Authorities and from influential people from within provider organisations. Delegates however were not just there to sit and listen and there was much round table discussion and interesting debate around such topics about how we can work effectively together to:

• Improving the profile of Social Care
• Developing a shared vision for services
• Reducing paperwork and enabling systems to flow
• Improve hospital admissions and discharge
• Provide a more joined up response to individuals

There was some really insightful input from providers and local authority personnel alike and it felt really constructive to be working side by side and identifying and defining problems together in this way. A set of notes were made from our conversations and we will be looking at ways to progress some of the great ideas and useful insights that were muted.

If you would like a copy of these notes they can be downloaded from the Care and Support West website as soon as possible.

We are always pleased when events we put on are so well received and seeing so many delegates there being as engaged as they were makes all the organisation and hard work worthwhile. It was testament to the value of this discussion that the room was still full as we closed the day. 

 A big thank you to all who were involved. Once again, it felt like a very worthwhile day.