Putting People First - Shaping your future, choosing your care

Commission of Inquiry into the future services for adults in need of support and care

Sessions to Hear the Evidence

The Commission arranged a series of all day hearings, between April and September 2008. These were held in the Discovery Centre in Winchester.

Each hearing concentrated on a theme, and experts were invited to present and discuss evidence with the Commissioners. Support was provided by Officers from the County Council, and external specialist advisors where appropriate.

Experts included:

• People and carers
• Partner organisations including Government departments
• Care providers, including those from the public, private and voluntary sectors
• Representatives from Local Authorities

The hearings took place from 10.00 am – 1.00 pm. People were invited to give evidence by advance invitation. Anyone who wished to submit information to the commission did do so in writing in advance and a number of people were invited to attend in person to talk to the Commissioners. Members of the public were able to attend the morning sessions as observers, but places had to be booked in advance as space was limited. The afternoon sessions were discussion sessions, by invitation only and these sessions were not be open to observers.

After each session a summary of the findings was published on the website.

The Commission’s conclusions will be reported to a meeting of the County Council in November and will be submitted to the Government to inform the forthcoming Green Paper on Adult Social Care.

Cllr. Ken Thornber, Leader of Hampshire County Council, will Chair the Commission with Cllr. Felicity Hindson as Vice Chairman.

The sessions planned were:

1. People and Carers (28 April 2008) - to explore the issues around individuals’ aspirations and experiences as people needing care or giving care, and to hear views about how care should be resourced and funded in the future.

2. Partners and Funding (12 June 2008) - to explore all the resources available for care and to identify more robust funding regimes across housing, social care, main stream services, benefits and health funding in order to help us to meet the challenges of demographic changes and resource constraints. This session will also explore issues of financial risk.

3. The Care Market (18 July 2008) - to look at how people can be offered real choice, dignity, control, positive outcomes, social inclusion, economic well-being and community support and how the market will adapt to provide this.

4. The Local Authority (19 September 2008) - to determine what Local Authorities need to do to be able to implement personalised services and how this will impact upon, systems, the workforce, culture, and other local and County Council departments.

There is also a summary session planned in October 2008 to review the findings of the Commission.