Swindon’s adult social care services ‘requires improvement’ following an inspection earlier this year, meaning that the council must submit an action plan to the government.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) visited in March and gave the local authority’s adult social care services a score of 62, one point below a ‘Good’ rating.
The council has disputed some of the findings and hopes that if their appeal is successful, the grading will be uplifted.
The published report will be considered when Swindon Borough Council meets next week.
It argues that the CQC’s quality statement in the governance, management and sustainability section needs to be reviewed, and says that this could tip the overall score up to 64.
To compile the report, the CQC spoke to more than 100 staff members, six providers and nine stakeholders, as well as three cabinet members and an opposition councillor.
They also attended four staff drop-in events and held numerous interview sessions with teams, groups and individuals.
The length of waiting lists is one area the CQC highlighted as an area of concern, noting “There had been significant waiting times in assessing a variety of needs, including Care Act, occupational therapy, DoLS (Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards) and financial assessments”. The inspectors did highlight that work had been done to start to reduce this.
They also called for action on the number of reviews of care plans, saying that Swindon have lower numbers compared to the national average. The accessibility of direct payments also required work as some of the people that the inspectors spoke to reported that they found the current process “stressful and overwhelming”.
Another area that needed additional work was the need to stabilise out-of-hours and Approved Mental Health Practitioners, and to implement the Integrated Care Record.
As a result, the council must now work with the Department of Health and Social Care to produce an action plan that will set out how it intends to increase the rating to at least ‘Good’. This should have named individuals and key leads against each action, and a clear timeframe for progress, along with costings.
They will have three months to submit this.
Swindon Borough Council says the report highlighted strong leadership, a motivated workforce and effective partnership working with the health sector. It also noted the Council’s clear vision and “encouraging inroads in addressing delays and backlogs”, and that it is well placed to deliver improvements.
Chris Badger, the CQC’s chief inspector of adult social care and integrated care, said Swindon Borough Council should be “pleased with many positive findings in our assessment and the foundations they have built”.
And Councillor Ray Ballman, Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care, said she was proud of the department’s progress and confident of further improvement.
“I’m extremely proud of all our staff who work in our adult social care department because they do a tremendous job on a daily basis to support our residents,” Cllr Ballman said.
She felt that missing out on a ‘Good’ grading by one point shows that the council’s adult services team are firmly on the right track, while the CQC’s report recognises a lot of the positive work that is being carried out to underpin its vision of everyone having ‘a home, a friend and a purpose’.
“We know we have work to do to reduce the delays in assessments and reviews and speed up how we provide support.
“It was encouraging to see the CQC noting that we had taken steps to improve things, but that these changes were in their early stages and had not yet become embedded in our practices. But this will come,” she continued.
“I am confident we can realise the sustained improvement the CQC is looking for and it will be great to show inspectors the progress we have made the next time they visit Swindon for their next inspection.”
