Addressing challenges, Celebrating successes

The Thames Valley Care Association Alliance (TVCAA), comprising the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire care associations, is planning a regional Adult Social Care Partnership Conference on November 4th 2026 at the Crown Plaza, Marlow. This conference will be developed and delivered collaboratively with Thames Valley Integrated Care Board (ICB).

Adult social care providers support thousands of people across Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, helping to prevent avoidable admissions, enable timely discharge and deliver high-quality care in local communities. The agenda reflects this breadth by covering public opinion, lived experience, frailty in all ages, dementia, regulation, safeguarding, wellbeing and practical system fixes.

The conference will bring together social care, health, local authorities, regulators and people with lived experience to strengthen partnerships, share learning and agree practical solutions to shared challenges.

Why Now?

Health and care services across the Thames Valley are operating in an increasingly challenging environment. Rising demand, workforce pressures, delayed discharges, increasing complexity of need, financial constraints and the ambition to deliver more care closer to home all require stronger collaboration between partners.

Although integrated working has progressed, there are limited opportunities for large-scale engagement between adult social care providers, NHS organisations, local authorities and regulators. A dedicated forum is needed to identify barriers, share innovation and agree practical actions that improve outcomes for local people.

The conference directly supports the ambitions of everyone working across adult social care by strengthening relationships, improving communication and accelerating collaborative approaches to prevention, admission avoidance, discharge and community-based care.

Conference Objectives

The conference will:

• Strengthen strategic and operational partnerships between NHS organisations, adult social care providers, local authorities and regulators.

• Improve understanding of the opportunities and challenges faced across different parts of the health and care system.

• Share examples of successful integrated working and innovative practice from across the region and beyond.

• Explore opportunities to improve admission avoidance, hospital discharge, frailty support, dementia care, safeguarding practice, wellbeing, workforce resilience and community-based support.

• Identify practical actions and commitments that can be taken forward collectively following the event.

Programme Highlights

The revised conference programme is structured around the theme "Addressing Challenges, Celebrating Successes" and will combine keynote inputs, lived experience, specialist insight, facilitated panels and audience discussion to identify practical improvements across adult social care and the wider health and care system.

The day will include sessions on public opinion and the Government stance, service user experience, frailty care, dementia, CQC trends, safeguarding, wellbeing and system-wide fixes.

Proposed Agenda (subject to change):

• Welcome from Nick Broughton CEO Thames Valley Integrated Care Board and Fidelma Tinneny, RN, Registered Manager and Board Member Berkshire Care Association.

• Setting the Scene: Public Opinion and Government stance, led by Simon Bottery from The King’s Fund.

• Service User Perspective - a plea for cultural change: The need for cohesive working from Michael Malinsky, author of What Would Maggie Do? (lived in a care home with his wife for 9 years)

• Challenges and Opportunities in all age frailty and collaborative working for better Care, led by Lucy Abbott, consultant Geriatrician NHSE South East Regional Clinical Advisor for Frailty.

• Panel discussion: What are the issues? with facilitated audience feedback from partners including GP, SCAS, ICB, care associations, local authorities and CQC.

• Dementia Challenges and Successes, facilitated by Alex Bayliss, including contributions from Reece White on Refocus Dementia and the Dementia Friendly Hospital Pathway

• CQC Trends, Inspections and Improvements in Monitoring, with speaker to be confirmed.

• When it works / When it doesn’t: safeguarding examples exploring good and poor process and referral practice.

• Wellbeing session.

• Panel discussion: What are the fixes? with facilitated audience feedback and system partner input.

• Closing speech from Prof Vic Rayner OBE.

At a time when all sectors face significant pressures, the conference will provide a practical and action-focused forum for developing solutions that no single organisation can achieve alone.

Lunch and refreshments throughout the day included.