Adult social care services in Brighton & Hove ‘require improvement’
The council’s adult social care services have been rated ‘requires improvement’ by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the independent regulator of health and social care in England.
The inspection took place in April this year and the inspection team measured how the council supports residents using 9 quality statements.
We need to improve our performance across all 9 areas with ‘Assessing people’s needs’ being the area that requires the most improvement.
Areas for improvement
The CQC found that people’s experiences of adult social care in Brighton & Hove varied, with positive examples of social work practice but with delays for assessment.
The CQC acknowledged that we have systems to monitor and manage waiting lists, including processes to prioritise urgent needs and maintain contact with those waiting. However, individuals can wait too long for an assessment with limited communication.
The inspection process started in November 2024, with the on-site visit announced in February 2025. During this time there was an organisational redesign with a new Senior Leadership team in place.
We are a year on from the initial notification and the relationships with partner organisations and internally are much stronger than when this process began.
What’s working well
Social care assessments in Brighton & Hove are person-centred and respectful of their rights and preferences.
Staff were praised for their compassionate and strengths-based approach, and assessments and care plans were tailored to individuals, including those with complex needs.
Our development of innovative services, such as specialist support for LGBTQ+ communities and services for neurodivergent people, was recognised by the CQC.
People felt supported by integrated teams, particularly in mental health and learning disability. In some specialist services, people experienced shorter waits and more timely assessments, reflecting the benefits of integrated and collaborative working.
We involve people with lived experience in meaningful ways through co-production, and people and partners told the CQC that they were given regular opportunities to provide feedback and inform strategic planning.
The CQC also recognised our work with partners to develop joint initiatives to support homeless people and our third sector investment programmes that aim to help us better understand the needs of seldom heard groups.
Now and next steps
Work is already underway to improve key areas highlighted in the CQC report, to reduce waiting times for assessment and review, prioritising prevention, and improving options for independent living.
The council has a transformation and modernisation plan which is addressing the areas for improvement, and while the CQC recognised the improvements, the outcome is based on the information gathered up until the onsite visit in April 2025.
The areas of improvement include:
- Initiatives to support quicker processes – We have launched pilots to explore new technology for assessment teams to use. These pilots are speeding up back-office processes to allow social workers more time to complete high value work with the individual.
- Improving review performance – We have moved from 29% of annual reviews completed on time 2023/24, to over 41% now. We have also invested in a dedicated team to drive improvements in annual review completion and have set a target of 55% for 2026/27 which would put us in line with our statistical neighbours.
- Out-of-area placements – We have revisited our use of placements outside Brighton & Hove, most of which are in East or West Sussex or made at the choice of the individual or representative. Our use of out-of-area placements has been reducing, with the majority of placements made some years ago for individuals that we wouldn’t move from a settled environment.
Waiting times
Some teams have made significant improvements in managing waiting lists, particularly in specialist teams, such as the community disability service.
To build upon this, we are monitoring waiting times for assessment in line with CQC performance measures. Services will have a waiting list management plan and monitored outcomes in service plans for 2026/27.
We are also piloting new communications to individuals while they are on waiting lists for services and building a ‘waiting well’ framework to ensure any risks to individuals are identified early and we improve communication with them.
Improvement plan
We have drafted an Adult Social Care Improvement Plan which will be approved by Cabinet in February 2026. This plan will reflect the need to improve performance in key areas, acknowledging the challenges within the current financial climate.
Valuable opportunity
Councillor Mitchie Alexander, Cabinet Member for Communities, Equalities, Public Health and Adult Social Care, said: “This inspection has been a valuable opportunity to get a detailed external analysis on how we can improve our adult social care provision.
“We have embraced this process and we are incredibly proud of how well our staff engaged with the CQC, particularly as this was the first inspection of a new framework for Brighton & Hove and the service’s first inspection in more than 15 years.
“The inspection process started in November 2024, with an on-site inspection in April 2025. We’ve already seen improvements in some key areas, and we’ve set new targets for 2026/27 to build upon this progress.
“While the CQC identified several areas of good practice and noted recent improvements, we acknowledge that a number of challenges remain. The findings echo our own data, and we look forward to progressing our improvement plan to rectify these issues.
“These challenges reflect the rising demand for services in our city, with the increasing complexity of cases and the numbers of people with multiple compound needs, all of which is combined with significant budget pressures.
“However, we are confident that we can use the feedback from this inspection to make further improvements to our adult social care services, which will enable people in Brighton & Hove to live healthy, happy and fulfilling lives.”