Controversial care 'easement' measures used to take the strain off services in Sunderland

Guidelines approved by the government earlier this year in response to the coronavirus outbreak allow social workers to cease formal assessments and reviews of vulnerable adults.

But bosses at Sunderland City Council (SCC) insist families will still get the help they need and will give ‘stretched’ teams ‘clear lines in the sand’ on how different responsibilities should be prioritised.

“This was a difficult one, it really, really was,” said Coun Geoff Walker, cabinet member for health and social care.

“The senior management team got on to me and said we’ve got this idea to produce a document of the areas we will concentrate on and not concentrate on.

“There was a clear concentration of resources on the COVID side and there was a case that other people could suffer.

“We had to make a value judgement about the point at which things became urgent and the point at which other things became urgent.

“Once we produced this document it would be clear what our procedure in all cases are – not just in COVID-19 cases.”

In March, as part of its ‘Coronavirus action plan’, the government passed the Coronavirus Act.

As well as boosting police quarantine powers and removing barriers on retired NHS staff returning to work, it also allowed councils to reduce paperwork to focus on caring for families with ‘the most pressing needs’.

At least six local authorities, including Sunderland, have used this to introduce an ‘easement’ of their duties under the Care Act.

A spokesman for SCC confirmed it is at the third stage of easement ‘as part of prudent planning measures’.

This allows social workers to ‘cease formal Care Act assessments, applications of eligibility and reviews’, but still requires they do ‘everything they can’ to meet their original responsibilities.

Stage four of the provisions allows further measures, such as limiting individuals’ access to some care, but there is no indication Sunderland is yet at this stage.

Coun Walker added he was ‘surprised’ more councils had not formally progressed to stage three.

Instead he suggested some ‘have decided to act in the way we are doing, but haven’t written it down and [notified] the Department of Health’.

SCC was named along with several other councils in a House of Lords debate by former paralympian and chancellor of Northumbria University, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, last month (April 23), in which she called the easements her ‘biggest concern’.

An official for the Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson public safety is the government’s ‘top priority’.

A statement added: “Details of local authorities operating under easements is shared with providers via social care representative bodies so they can make the best use of the available resources to meet the most urgent needs during this unprecedented time.

“We are working closely with social care and local government partners to monitor the use of care act easements and ensure that the most vulnerable in society continue to receive safe, compassionate care and details of local authorities operating under easements will be published shortly.”

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