Impact assessment of policy delaying care for 4 weeks

Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council did not have the information requested.

Dear Wirral Borough Council,

Following the disclosure of the policy within the FOI request:

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/il...

Please disclose the risk assessment / impact assessment and equality impact assessment conducted to understand the results of the implementation of the policy by Rick O'Brien - Head of Branch Access and Assessment.

Please also signpost to the meeting minutes where the policy was passed by elected members with explanation of the results and full explanation of the risk assessment / impact assessment / equality impact assessment.

Please also disclose any harm, safeguarding issues, serious injury, death, admission to hospital or detention under the mental health act that was a direct result of the policy.

Yours faithfully,

Pete Sheffield

Corrin, Jane, Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council

Good Morning,

Thank you for your request for information, shown below.  Please see
Wirral Councils response also below and I hope this information is useful
to you.

Kind Regards

Jane Corrin

Information Manger

Wirral Council

 

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Dear Corrin, Jane,

For clarification and for the record please disclose which officers drafted the reply of which you have forwarded in the response.

To clarify my request I asked: Please disclose the risk assessment / impact assessment and equality impact assessment conducted to understand the results of the implementation of the policy by Rick O'Brien - Head of Branch Access and Assessment.

Your response was a description of the arrangements followed by clarification regarding Equality Impact Assessments describing them as 'scheduled around the wider service changes in DASS rather that specific authorisation arrangements about decision making for manager and practitioners.'

May I draw your attention to the document Briefing Note 1 25.05.09 and to the circulation of Principal Manager, Service Managers, Team Managers and Registered Managers. It was also disseminated to Teams. There was also a verbal briefing to All Staff. Additionally there was confirmation of receipt and actions.

Of particular interest is the status of the Briefing Note 1. This is crossed on the criteria 'Change to Existing Policy and Procedure Guidance'.
I would suggest that this is a wider service change and thus did warrant an impact / risk assessment of the consequences of 'Change to Existing Policy and Procedure Guidance'. I would also suggest that it is a wider service change as every person accessing services within Wirral Borough Council's boundary is subject to this policy change.

To clarify, you are unable to point me to any minutes where the policy was passed by elected members or to any transparency regarding the impact of this change in policy as stated above no impact assessment was completed and also as it was not presented to elected members.

To clarify the final part of the request, you first state that this information is confidential. I was not asking for confidential information but rather any issues relating to harm, safeguarding issues, serious injury, death, admission to hospital or detention under the mental health act that was a direct result of the policy. As you have failed to undertake an appropriate impact assessment then you would be ignorant to any resulting harm it could or has resulted in.

As a suggestion of how this information could of been gathered would be that an impact assessment would of been completed before the rolling out of the policy with scope to lead to the above issues and to measure safeguarding referrals or further requests for assessment from the time of assessment to the time of provision. This of course would measure and assess the 'impact' of the policy change to evaluate any further changes to policy, procedure or practice.

To summarise, your response confirms that WBC have implemented a wide ranging policy which affects vulnerable adults over all the services commissioned and delivered by DASS failing to measure its impact and failing to present the scope of the policy change to elected members. You have failed, by your own description of when an impact assessment should be undertaken, to assess the scope of your policy change and thus may well have put vulnerable adults at risk in what could be described as a hastily implemented policy designed to delay care and avoid cost with little regard to the vulnerable adults of which you have a duty to protect.

Yours sincerely,

Pete Sheffield

Dear Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council,

For clarification and for the record please disclose which officers drafted the reply of which you have forwarded in the response.

Yours faithfully,

Pete Sheffield

InfoMgr, FinDMT, Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council

Good Afternoon,
Thank you for the email below, the answer to the request was written by
Rick O'Brien.
Kind Regards
Jane Corrin
Information Manager

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Heston O Riley left an annotation ()

Maybe Mr O Brian could explain the email which have appeared on the internet while he's at it too?

*******************************************

From : [Principal Manager]

“Subject: RE: ******** POC waver needed

Please waive delay in this package”

******************************************************************************

From: [Team manager]
Sent: 15 June 2010 09:39
To: DASS, CareProcurement; & [Principal manager]
Cc: [whistleblower]
Subject: RE: Authorisation—budget service users wishes DASS to set up the support
Importance: High

do we need a waver or should IB cases just be actioned straight away anyway? Please waver if necessary thanks.

RESPONE:From: [Principal Manager]
Sent: 09 July 2010 11:11
To: [line Manager] ; DASS, CareProcurement
Cc: [whistleblower]
Subject: RE: Authorisation budget service users wishes DASS to set up the support

Please waive delay – apologies for delay in getting the waiver back

*******************************************************

From: DASS, CareProcurement
Sent: 04 August 2010 12:17
To: [PrincipalManager]
Cc: [whistleblower 1];
Subject: FW: *******, please can you authorise waver thanks

Importance: High

Wirral HARTS are unable to assist with this POC as it’s a community based referral it will now be placed on hold for 4 weeks unless we receive a waver from your principal manager

{name removed]

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