Foreword

We have many things for be thankful for in Somerset: our skilled and dedicated workforce, excellent partners in the NHS and voluntary organisations and a strong sense of community in all corners of our county. We are very grateful for this chance to thank them and acknowledge how much we value them.

They also set us up well to meet the challenges we are all facing currently. Councils in every part of the country are still learning to live with the longer-term effects of the pandemic and also the current financial and cost of living crisis. Every local authority is facing a tough and competitive recruitment market. Additionally here in Somerset we have a thriving but aging population and we need to be creative and exacting to improve our services for those people.

We need now to be delivering our very best service in the most challenging of times.
Our Adult Social Care Strategy sets out our principles and priorities, and most importantly how we will achieve them.

We do have some distinct opportunities at this particular time. With the formation of the new unitary council, for the first time in Somerset we will be working alongside our colleagues in housing and planning. Also we now have the newly formed Integrated Care System, in our case a very singular and simple landscape with one Integrated Care Partnership that aligns well with the one Health and Wellbeing Board, and now just one NHS Trust that incorporates the previous mental health and acute trusts.

We could not do what we do every day without our colleagues in care providers, hospitals and communities.

We could not do it without the people who draw on our services, their families and their carers.

We hope our strategy, supported by this Market Position Statement, will help us to enable people to live their best lives and improve their health and wellbeing.