20 February 2024 (13:00-14:00)

This month, the Working Age Adult Group came together to discuss priorities for the specialist sector in 2024. The meeting was a chance for members to voice the pressures they’re facing, and what Care England can do to alleviate them.

The meeting was an opportunity to help set the agenda for upcoming sessions and ensure we are actively working together to address the critical problems you are facing and share good practice.

The agenda looked at:

1. What are the key issues your organisation is currently facing that are specific to the working age adult sector?
2. What issues do you foresee in 2024, if different to the above, that are specific to the working age adult sector?
3. How have you overcome, or are preparing to overcome, these issues?
4. What support do you want from Care England to support your work?

Meeting materials can be found here.

19 March 2024 (13:00-14:00)

In November 2023, the annual Learning Disability Mortality Review (LeDeR) report was published. The report looks into the lives and deaths of people with a learning disability whose deaths had been notified to LeDeR.

For March’s meeting, we were joined by Rachel Snow-Miller, Head of LeDeR at NHS England, who presented the key findings of the report. We discussed:

• How we can make sure the recommendations in the report are realised?
• What are learning disability providers already doing to tackle inequalities?
• What support do providers need from bodies such as the NHS, and local and central government to ensure meaningful change can be made?

Meeting notes can be found here,  and presentation slides can be viewed here.

16 April 2024 (13:00-14:00)

Care England was joined by colleagues from Skills for Care, the Royal College of Nursing, and Professor Deborah Sturdy CBE, Chief Nurse for Social Care at DHSC to discuss learning disability nursing. Colleagues presented on the work they are undertaking in this space, before opening up a discussion on:

• How do we recruit LD nurses?
  • What’s working well to recruit LD nurses?
    • Case studies/best practice collation
    • What are the career opportunities for existing staff to become LD nurses?
  • What do care providers look for in the recruitment process of LD nurses?
    • What do LD nurses offer that other nurses may not?
• What does CPD look like for an LD nurse?
  • Case study/best practice collation
  • How can we create meaningful career pathways for LD nurses?
• How do we reimagine what LD nursing looks like?
  • Blue-sky thinking: what needs to change? What needs to be enhanced?

To view the meeting notes, please click here.

21 May 2024 (13:00-14:00)

In May’s WAAG we heard from the Chair of the group, Peter Kinsey, about his work with actors across the sector to identify key issues to prioritise in the year of a general election. Members weighed in on what themes they’d like to see prioritised for discussion with political parties.  We also had a discussion on the impact of commissioning for complex care and reducing restrictive practice in the community in advance of our meeting with NHS England and LGA colleagues. Notes from the meeting can be found here, and the presentation slides can be found here.

18 June 2024 (13:00-14:00)

In June, we were joined by Hilary Paxton, Senior Advisor: People with a learning disability and autistic people at Partners in Care and Health and the Local Government Association. We discussed key matters around complex care in the community, and how commissioning can help reduce restrictive practice. Members had the chance to feed into Care England’s work on broader commissioning practice.

For the meeting notes, please click here. For Hilary’s presentation slides, please click here, and for slides on Care England’s ongoing work on commissioning, please click here.

16 July 2024 (13:00-14:00)

Our July meeting focused on what a Labour government might mean for organisations that provide support for working age adults. We heard from a care provider, SeeAbility, who provided an overview areas they could foresee changes that would impact providers, and an overview of the actions they were taking to ensure they are in a position to influence change. We were also joined by Anthony Collins Solicitors, who gave an analysis of the changes to employment law that providers may expect. 

For SeeAbility’s slides, please click here. For the rest of the meeting slides, please click here, and for the meeting notes, please click here. 

20 August 2024 (13:00-14:00)

Following conversations about commissioning at previous meetings, we will be joined at our August meeting by Holly Irwin, Head of Social Care Practice Innovation at Skills for Care, and Lynda Tarpey, CEO of HASCA.  We will be discussing the Principles of Commissioning for Wellbeing Level 5 Qualification, which centres around personalised and outcome-focused approaches to commissioning designed to enable meaningful and fulfilled lives, delivered by HASCA and created by Skills for Care.  For more information on the training, please see here. Holly will also give an overview of Skills for Care’s broader work with commissioners. 

17 September 2024 (13:00-14:00)

15 October 2024 (13:00-14:00)

19 November 2024 (13:00-14:00)