Councillors to discuss Adult Social Care Improvement Plan

Members of the People Overview & Scrutiny Committee will review and give feedback on our draft Adult Social Care Improvement Plan at the committee’s meeting on Wednesday 28 January. 

The improvement plan has been created following a Care Quality Commission (CQC) report rating our adult social care services as ‘requires improvement’. As we received a score of 1 for Assessing Needs, the CQC has issued the council a Section 50 notice. 

This means the CQC has given formal notice of the judgement to the Secretary of State for Health & Social Care. We have worked closely with the Local Government Association to complete the improvement plan which has been shared with the Department for Health & Social Care.

The Section 50 notice highlighted 2 key areas of concern: waiting times for assessment, including waiting well procedures, and completion of annual reviews. 

The Adult Social Care Improvement Plan is addressing these concerns and sets targets for additional performance areas in order to enhance outcomes for residents requiring care and support.

Adult Social Care Improvement Plan 

The draft Adult Social Care Improvement Plan sets out a range of focus areas based on the findings of the CQC report. These include:

• Waiting times
• Waiting well
• Annual reviews
• Residential admissions
• Reablement (care after illness or hospital discharge)
• Prevention

The objectives and actions set out in the plan are separated into 3 key phases:

• Phase 1: High priority actions identified by CQC on Assessing Needs theme
• Phase 2: Improvement actions in areas identified by CQC in the other themes, with targets to move scores from 2 (Requires Improvement) to 3 (Good)
• Phase 3: Improvement actions in areas identified by CQC as score of 3 (Good)

The Adult Social Care Improvement Plan outlines key members of staff, teams and committees that will be responsible for overseeing this programme of work and how progress will be monitored and reported.

The improvement plan also identifies risks to the Adult Social Care Improvement Plan, specifically capacity within operational teams, the increasing complexity of need, and shortage of experienced practitioners. 

Strategic vision 

The improvement plan will support our strategic vision for adult social care, making Brighton & Hove a city where every adult needing care receives the right support to live safely and with dignity.

We will work with staff, leaders and residents to design and deliver services that address inequalities, strengthen communities, and use innovation and technology to provide high-quality, person-centred care.

Improving our adult social care provision

Councillor Mitchie Alexander, Cabinet Member for Communities, Equalities, Public Health and Adult Social Care, said: “The recent CQC inspection was a valuable opportunity to get an independent view about where we are on our improvement journey.

“We have used this feedback to create an Adult Social Care Improvement Plan which sets out how we intend to progress the key areas highlighted by the CQC. We have centred the voices of those we support and we’ve begun making changes to strengthen our services.

“Delivery against our improvement plan is supported by our learning organisation framework. We have already reduced the wait times for assessment from nearly 3 months to about 1 month.

“We welcome comments from the overview and scrutiny committee about our plan for improvement and the progress we have made so far against the objectives and actions outlined in it. The Adult Social Care Improvement Plan will then be discussed at the Cabinet meeting in February.”