Why Sunderland City Council is using controversial measures to overhaul services during the crisis

Sunderland City Council has been named among at least six local authorities to take advantage of controversial measures allowing them to scale back some responsibilities.

But while the city council has formally notified the government of its plans, as required, others may not have.

“We cannot put this in place indefinitely, we’re going to review it in three months, see how much we need to keep in place, or take out, or maybe not use it at all,” said Coun Geoff Walker, cabinet member for health and social care.

“There is the expectation there will be a second spike, possibly in September, and they’re saying it could be bigger than the first one.

“The social care team is pretty stretched, some senior managers are working seven days a week.

“It’s about lines in the sand saying we can do this but we cannot do that.

“Then it came to light only six local authorities had decided to do this in the way we have, but I expect a lot of local authorities have decided to act in the way we are doing, but haven’t written it down and put it to the Department of Health.”

The Coronavirus Act, introduced by the government as part of measures to fight the COVID-19 outbreak, allows councils to introduce ‘easements’ to their social care responsibilities.

Sunderland is currently at stage three under this scheme, allowing it to stop ‘formal’ assessments and reviews.

But it has not reached stage four, which would let social workers limit some access to care to prioritise the most urgent or vulnerable cases.

“I think the majority of councils will be operating in this way, in terms of prioritising levels of urgency in all social care, not just COVID cases,” Coun Walker added.

“I was surprised so few had formalised it in a document, but the ones that have are the ones I would consider slightly more progressive in the way they deal with discharge from hospitals.”

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