Council to ‘transform’ care team as Covid-19 peak looms

A LOCAL authority has introduced a “wholesale transformation” of its social care service and is recruiting an army of staff to pump extra capacity into the NHS as it prepares for an expected coronavirus peak in its area.

North Yorkshire County Council, which is responsible for an area with one of the country’s highest proportions of elderly residents, has moved its social care teams to work with hospitals in Harrogate, Northallerton and Scarborough.

The teams will support emergency discharges for people and link up with hospitals in Keighley, Middlesbrough and York, to speed discharges there.

The staff have been asked to aid targets of enabling a patient to leave a bed within one hour of a doctor saying a patient can be discharged and to leave the hospital within three hours.

The council teams, which will operate a seven-day-a-week 8am to 8pm service, will also work with community health staff and GPs to ensure emergency support for people with Covid-19 and provide support for people in the community with social care needs.

It is also hoped the council will be able to recruit up to 395 extra posts ahead of the expected coronavirus peak in the county later this month.

Coun Michael Harrison, the council’s executive member for adult social care, said the changes aimed to prevent hospital admissions and enable discharges at a faster rate and greater volume.

He said: “It is a wholesale transformation of our service to meet the requirements of the NHS, the Government and our communities.”