This meeting was scheduled to receive verbal and written reports on the state of a number of health and wellbeing policy areas, as well as considering the council's Adult Social Care Strategy 2025/26. The meeting also scheduled the consideration of the annual reports of the North Tyneside Safeguarding Adults Board and the North Tyneside Safeguarding Children Partnership.

Adult Social Care Strategy 2025/26

The report pack for the meeting included the draft Adult Social Care Strategy 2025/26. This is a two year strategy that is intended to build the foundations for a subsequent strategy to lead the council's Adult Social Care provision until the end of the decade. The strategy was developed with input from care service users and professionals, and was the topic of a public consultation. The strategy is built on three key themes:

• Empowering People
• Effective, efficient services
• Support and safeguarding

Empowering people

This section of the strategy proposes a number of activities, all intended to support people with care needs to live good lives and exercise as much control as possible over their support. These proposals include:

• Continued support to address financial crisis and poverty
• More social opportunities to address loneliness
• Increased access to advice, especially in more deprived areas
• Targeted support for people with the highest barriers to health services, work and education.

The strategy proposes to measure progress on this section by tracking the number of repeat requests for crisis financial support, the number of people reporting as much social contact as they want, the number of safeguarding concerns, and the number of emergency service callouts. The strategy also seeks to improve the range and accessibility of information for people with care needs, increase the number of Direct Payments, increase the number of carers assessments that are conducted, and improve the quality of feedback about social care support in the annual Caring in North Tyneside survey.

Effective, efficient services

This section focuses on ensuring the timely delivery of good quality services. The strategy aims to:

• Increase assessments for equipment and adaptations.
• Make the process to assess people’s needs swifter.
• Co-design a new approach to assessment with people with care and support needs.
• Invite people with care needs and carers to train staff in outcome-focused assessment and care planning.
• Provide extra training where needs are growing, e.g. dementia and neurodivergence.

The strategy proposes to measure progress on this theme by tracking waiting times for equipment, adaptations and assessments, the number of overdue reviews, and the quality of feedback in the Adult Social Care Survey and the Survey of Adult Carers in England. It also aims to improve feedback from Healthwatch North Tyneside's Lived Experience Feedback Interviews. A significant proposal in this section of the strategy is to improve the coordination of support for young people who are transitioning into adulthood. This is scheduled to be achieved by improving processes for multi-agency working, investing in dedicated leadership for transition planning, and agreeing shared principles with young people and their families. This work is to be measured by tracking the timeliness of allocating young people to adult social care workers, how far in advance of a young person's 18th birthday their support plans are finalised, findings from multi-agency quality checks, and the quality of feedback from young people and their families. Finally the strategy sets out an aim to support people to get back to baseline after an illness, accident or period of ill health. It proposes to do this by renewing the technology used to keep people safe at home, trialling new technology to reduce administrative tasks for social workers, providing more intensive support for people in hospital and short-term residential care to return home, and establishing a dedicated review team, to make sure people have the support they need to stay at home for longer.

Support and Safeguarding

The final section of the strategy proposes to safeguard people with care needs and ensure that their rights are respected, including those who cannot make decisions about their own care and treatment. A significant proposal in this section is to develop the skills of staff in delivering trauma-informed support. The strategy will seek to embed trauma-informed practice in all services, and enable more people who have survived abuse to shape the way the council works. It is proposed that this work be measured by improvements in safeguarding audits, and an increase in the proportion of people who have experienced abuse telling the council that the outcomes they wanted from their support were achieved. This section of the strategy also proposes a focus on preventing abuse and neglect. The council schedules to take action to keep people safe from harm, and streamline its safeguarding administration to focus workers’ time on making people safe. The strategy also sets out an aim to focus training in line with local trends in abuse and neglect, develop new approaches to make sure lessons are learned if people suffer harm, provide more multi-agency quality assurance, and enable more people who have survived abuse to shape its ways of working. It proposes to measure the success of this work by increasing the timeliness of safeguarding enquiries, improving findings from safeguarding audits, and ensuring an increased proportion of people who have experienced abuse tell the council that the outcomes they wanted from their support were achieved. Finally the strategy proposes to make sure people are receiving the Right Care, Right Place. This is to be achieved by increasing the quality monitoring of care services, developing new care options to meet the changing needs of residents, and promoting recruitment, retention and training of the social care workforce through the North Tyneside Care Academy. It also aims to include people with lived experience of social care, and their carers, in service design, procurement and quality monitoring.

Equally Well Progress Update: Best Start in Life

A report titled *Equally Well Progress Update: Best Start in Life*, accompanied by a presentation, was scheduled for consideration. The report focused on the support given to young people and families to lay the foundations for their future and shape their development, educational attainment, and life chances.¹ It described work that is being done on expanding the provision of Family Hubs, and the location of services at these hubs. It described the work of a number of organisations, including Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, VODA, and The Children's Foundation. The report highlighted the Baby Box scheme, which provides a cardboard box that can be used as a baby's first bed, along with essential items for new parents and a range of developmentally stimulating toys. The report scheduled the discussion of the continuation of the MumsSpace project, which provides groups for parents to socialise, and access advice and guidance from professionals. It also described the work of the council's Early Years Inclusion Service, and the efforts to increase the uptake of the Healthy Start scheme.

Equally Well Progress Update: Maximising Capabilities of Children, Young People and Adults

Another report, this one titled *Equally Well Progress Update: Maximising Capabilities of Children, Young People and Adults*, was scheduled for discussion, and was also set to be accompanied by a presentation on the support for the mental health and emotional wellbeing of young people. This report described a number of initiatives that are underway in the borough that are designed to increase school attendance and attainment, particularly for vulnerable children and young people. It describes the work that is being done by the council's Attendance Team, School Support Team, and a multi-agency team focused on Children Missing Out on Education (CMOOE), and a multi-agency attendance working group. The report also highlighted the council's Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Inclusion Strategy 2021-24, and set out the aims of this strategy. The strategy's priorities include co-production of North Tyneside's Early Years SEND Inclusion Service, establishment of a Graduated Approach, and launching a new SEND Preparation for Adulthood Service. The report describes the work that is being done by the council's HIVE team, which seeks to provide holistic support for Children in Care and Care Leavers, and described a number of activities that are designed to support the emotional wellbeing and mental health of children and young people. These include initiatives to embed prevention and early intervention, and an initiative to bring together services that provide support for emotional and mental wellbeing under the name The Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing Collaborative. The report also highlighted the work of the Neurodiversity Transformation Team, describing a number of conferences and symposia, and proposed the discussion of the Ignite your Potential Preparation for Adulthood programme and the Explore your Potential pilot scheme. Finally, the report proposed discussing a new programme called Release your Potential, which provides support for adults with learning difficulties and disabilities.

NTSAB Annual Report 2023-24

The agenda included the consideration of the annual report of the North Tyneside Safeguarding Adults Board (NTSAB). The report outlined the board's vision, which is to promote the individual’s human rights, their capacity for independence, ensuring each person is treated with dignity and respect and able to enjoy a sustained quality of life and improved wellbeing. It also described the board's efforts to support its strategic priorities of:

• Learning from practice - understanding the impact of emerging themes and trends on adults
• Transitional safeguarding arrangements – ensuring robust and consistent responses are in place to manage safeguarding across transitions.
• Mental Health & Mental Capacity – increasing the appropriate application of the Mental Capacity Act, understanding the impact of multiple disadvantage on safeguarding, identifying those at risk, and improving practice
• Exploitation & Contextual Safeguarding – ensuring early identification and effective responses to prevent and reduce the impact of exploitation
• Making Safeguarding Personal – increasing engagement with experts by experience in relation to Making Safeguarding Personal, and the work of the board

The report highlighted the work that has been done on developing a new Multi-agency Risk Management (MARM) Panel, which was established to create a supportive environment for practitioners to discuss the safeguarding of adults with multiple and complex needs. It described the new MARM protocol, and how it has been implemented in the borough. The report also described the board's use of data to analyse trends and themes in abuse, and highlighted a number of audits that have been conducted during the year. It then described two Safeguarding Adult Reviews that were conducted during the year, and what was learned from them. One review was of an 85 year old woman, Adult AT, who was sexually assaulted in her care home. The second review was of a 77 year old woman, Adult AU, who died in November 2023. The review found evidence of cuckooing² and financial abuse. The report also highlighted a nomination for an award from the SAB Managers Network, and the training that was delivered to staff during the year. It also described work done on developing new policies and procedures, and on engaging with the public. Finally the report described the structure of the NTSAB, which is made up of an Executive Board, Partnership Board, and a number of sub-groups.

NTSCP Annual Report 23-24

Finally, the agenda included the annual report of the North Tyneside Safeguarding Children Partnership (NTSCP). The report highlighted the partnership's vision, which is to make North Tyneside a place where all, including those who are vulnerable, disadvantaged or disabled, are ready for school, ready for work and life, cared for and supported. The report described the partnership's governance, which is shared between the partnership board, safeguarding executive group, and a number of sub-groups. It highlighted the importance of a number of key documents and policies, including the partnership's Children and Young People’s Plan 2024- 25, Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023, and the partnership's Safeguarding children with disabilities and complex health needs in residential settings report. The report also highlighted the partnership's three main areas of focus during the year: neglect, transitions, and children missing education. It described a number of activities, including the delivery of training to staff, and holding forums to engage with practitioners. The report described the two Rapid Reviews conducted during the year. The first was the death of 12-week old Sean, who died from an inflicted traumatic brain injury. The second was the death of 16 year old Adam, who died from self-inflicted injuries. The report also highlighted the work that is being done to tackle criminal and sexual exploitation, with an emphasis on partnership working. Finally, the report looked forward to the next year, setting out the Partnership's planned priorities of:

• Neglect
• Contextual Safeguarding
• Risk Outside of the Home