Kent County Council

Kent County Council (KCC) is consulting on a new strategy for adult social care. The strategy explains KCC’s vision for how we want adult social care to be over the next five years. Demand for adult social care is increasing and finances are under pressure. Expectations of adult social care are changing; people want a life, not a service. Adult social care in Kent needs to continue to respond to these challenges, and the new strategy sets out how we will do this.

Our vision is to help people to improve or maintain their well-being and to live as independently as possible.

The strategy breaks down our approach to adult social care into three themes that cover the whole range of services provided for people with social care and support needs and their carers:

1. Promoting well-being – supporting and encouraging people to look after their health and well-being to avoid or delay them needing adult social care
2. Promoting independence – providing short-term support so that people are then able to carry on with their lives as independently as possible
3. Supporting independence – for people who need ongoing social care support, helping them to live the life they want to live, in their own homes where possible, and do as much for themselves as they can

The strategy also explains the building blocks that underpin what we must have in place in order to achieve the vision – namely, effective protection (safeguarding), a flexible workforce, smarter commissioning and improved partnership working. It also includes a set of values and principles that will guide everything we do to provide care and support.

Have your say

We would like to hear your views on the draft strategy which is available to download from the ‘Consultation Documents’ section below. We will use your feedback to help produce the final version of the strategy by December 2016. (more…)