The night before the recent Social Care Future gathering in Manchester, I enjoyed watching Newcastle beat Bradford 4 - 1 in the Carabao Cup. The goals were great of course, but the thing I enjoyed as much was the enthusiasm and noise made by the 5000 Bradford fans. Travelling in hope more than expectation I suspect.
But alongside the familiar soundtrack of the home crowd, it helped create a great atmosphere, which I can tell you as a long-time Newcastle fan is more reliable than results.
So, the following day it was great to be in a different crowd in Manchester, with people travelling from all over and continuing the positivity.
Brought together under the Social Care Future banner, the movement is trying to shift the focus on Social Care from being less about us and them and more about all of us.
It was a great day for many reasons. I got to meet people who use services, people who work in the health and social care system and to share some of mine and Medequip’s experiences.
There was a lot of emotion on show, which is not my normal work environment, and I suspect not for many of the paid staff who were there. A lot of references to “love” and “joy” and why these should feature more in our work. It was hard to ignore and quite infectious when you’re surrounded by it and the President of ADASS, Jess McGregor is telling you “to love is to act”.
I liked the “Suggestion Time” session, hosted by the bow tie-wearing Andy McCabe channelling Robin Day. It was a responsive crowd, encouraged by Andy to cheer for suggestions they agreed with. I had to smile when the loudest cheer went up for the suggestion to do away with commissioning and procurement and just manage everything through individual budgets. A challenging experiment for someone to try!
As an organisation that gets the majority of its business from public sector contracts, I was interested to hear about the Plumbing and Wiring work Martin Routledge, Martin Cattermole and others have pulled together because one of their areas of focus is commissioning and procurement. I know from our own experience with the Equipment Matters group, that people who use services are asking for much more involvement in the commissioning and procurement process for community equipment. A survey is just not cutting it these days.
We have a lot of examples of great work in commissioning, procurement and contract management from a market perspective, so we will share that with the Plumbing and Wiring crew.
It was also good to hear about the work of the Casey Commission and their commitment to hearing from people online on the day and I will make sure Medequip responds.
With a very interesting introduction to Manchester’s commitment to involving people and communities from Eve Holt and Rick Burgess, a very thought-provoking book from Bryonny Shannon and music and spontaneous dancing book-ending the day, it felt like there is a still a place for hopefulness.
In fact, it felt like I’d had two good results in a row.