Review of Community and Social Services

Background

The Health and Social Services Department (HSSD) is responsible for ensuring delivery of community-based health and social care services for Jersey. HSSD’s Community and Social Services Directorate (C&SSD) provides a number of these services.

This is a complex area which has been subject to a number of reviews, including in 2008 when important changes were recommended to children’s services. Change following those reports was slow but from 2014 concerted action has been taken to improve the management of services for children.

Scope

This review considers the effectiveness of the changes in services for children and how learning is transferred to other services, including those for vulnerable adults.

Conclusions

There are good arrangements in place for the implementation of the changes to community-based services following the 2012 White Paper ‘Caring for each other, Caring for ourselves’.

There is no comprehensive approach to the management of delivery of day-to-day services across C&SSD despite initial steps to develop and implement such a framework.

The challenge is to put in place robust and resilient arrangements across the whole of C&SSD, learning from the positive steps taken in the implementation of the changes following the White Paper.