Along with all other council services, the Adult Social Care and Health Department is actively involved in working as One Council delivering quality services within a reduced budget.
We take a whole system approach to improving outcomes for adults and older people with partnership working at its heart. Strong relationships and structures for joint and integrated working locally with the NHS are used to plan, commission and deliver health and care services across the County and we play an active system leadership role with NHS partners within the Sussex Integrated Care System at both Sussex wide and East Sussex levels. We work with district and borough housing departments, independent sector providers and with a wide range of voluntary and community organisations to promote effective support for vulnerable adults and older people.
At the core of this partnership work is the Sussex Integrated Care Strategy – ‘Improving Lives Together’ and the associated Shared Delivery Plan. Central to the strategy are three shared priority areas:
- Integrated Community (Neighbourhood) Teams (We are one of the first cohort of the National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Programme – NNHIP)
- Workforce
- Digital
The pan-Sussex Strategy supports the delivery of our own Health and Wellbeing Strategy and Adult Social Care Strategy – ‘What Matters to you’
The last few years has seen significant changes for Adult Social Care and the recent announcements in respect of the abolition of NHS England and significant reductions in the Integrated Care Board’s operating costs, the Casey Review and the NHS Ten Year Plan will all have a significant impact on the shape of the service, how services are commissioned and provided and who they are provided to.
The site visit element of the Care Quality Commission (CQCV) assurance process took place in February 2025 with the final report being published in October 2025 where we received an overall rating of Good.
The CQC report indicated commissioning teams had good oversight of commissioned services and provided on-going management, overview of quality and service delivery, and held providers to account for the contract and contained the following: ‘Partners told us the local authority’s model of commissioning was accessible and supportive of all providers.’
They found that our Market Support Team maintained knowledge of the provider markets and risk, utilising risk assessment tools to provide effective market support including in business continuity situations. They also found that our multi-agency Market Oversight Panel (MOP) was a good source to identify risks and provide coordinated support to the market
The report outlined the many good examples of co-production and highlighted that partners participated in developing local authority strategies and partners told the CQC ‘the local authority valued them, and they had strong links with adult social care and public health’. The report also referenced our Commissioning Excellence Programme as a good example of developing excellence in local authority / voluntary, community and social enterprise sector commissioning.
The CQC also found that our strategic planning was well informed by performance, risk, and EDI data stating ‘The local authority uses information about risks, performance, inequalities and outcomes to inform it’s adult social care strategy and plans.’
Following our positive CQC report and against a backdrop of local government and NHS reorganisation, we are entering an exciting and challenging period of significant change and development in order to respond effectively and efficiently to the demands of our residents and all of these developments at the same time as maintaining our existing high quality service provision.
We are looking for an individual who leads authentically and can motivate and support the skilled and dedicated teams delivering key services and support to both vulnerable adults, fellow professionals and colleagues. They need to have an eye for innovation and be able to drive forward our Adult Social Care and Prevention Strategies and Carers Partnership Plan, respond to the outcome of our CQC assurance process and embrace the change and transformation created by national developments.
They also need be an effective team player with all of our partner agencies, especially as they will have a key role in managing and maintaining the Council’s relationships with the NHS, Borough and District Councils, the provider market and voluntary, community and social enterprise sectors.
Adult Social Care and Health Structure Chart
