Adult Social Care Services 

We want to ensure that we have the best adult social care services possible for our residents.  From time to time, that means the need for some external scrutiny, to highlight areas where we can improve and to satisfy ourselves about the areas where we are performing strongly.  We have been notified that the Care Quality Commission will perform an inspection of our services in mid-July 2010. 

The inspection will be a partnership activity:  they are not just looking at how well the Council delivers services, but how well those with social care needs are supported by all partnership agencies, including voluntary sector partners. These pages are so that you can find out a bit more about the process, and see how it might affect you.

On their website, they give their aim as:

"The Care Quality Commission is the independent regulator of health and social care in England. We regulate care provided by the NHS, local authorities, private companies and voluntary organisations. We aim to make sure better care is provided for everyone - in hospitals, care homes and people's own homes. We also seek to protect the interests of people whose rights are restricted under the Mental Health Act."

They were formed by the bringing together of the old Commission for Social Care Inspection and the Healthcare Commission. 

The dates of the inspection have been set for the two weeks commencing 19 July 2010. During that time, the inspectors will be staying in or around the borough and will be actively meeting with officers from the Council, partnership officers and - most importantly - service users. 

Whilst they look at how well we perform overall, a specific client group is also chosen as an enhanced focus for the inspection: in our case, this is how well services are delivered to people with learning difficulties and disabilities.

A large amount of documentary evidence is collated in advance and forwarded to the inspectors so that they can begin to focus their questions.  This is underway now, and officers in the Council are pulling together the paperwork requested by CQC and sending it through to them in batches.  This includes strategies and procedures, minutes of meetings and information that we make available to the public.

As a member of the Partnership, providing services to the community, you will want to think about how the inspection may affect you.  This is your opportunity as well to learn about the services you provide and how well they meet the needs of older people, people with learning and other disabilities, and the wider community. Some things to think about include:

• How accessible are the information and services that I provide?  Where might I improve?
• How well do I understand the needs of these service user groups, where am I getting my data from, and how well am I using it to inform service development?
• How am I keeping up to date with the latest developments in social care locally?  What boards am I on and how do I use that position to learn about how my services can improve, as well as taking opportunities to challenge and improve the services of others?
• When are things happening around the inspection, where might I come across inspectors, and who are they talking to about how well we are doing locally?

The answer to that last question is right here on this website...

We hope that you find this information useful and join with us in engaging with the inspection process so that we can come out of it with an excellent result for local services.  Perhaps more importantly, we are looking for some robust learning from which we can only make things better for our service users and residents.

28 July 2010

The inspection fieldwork session is completed.  Further details of the findings will be distributed through the website when they are available.

14 June 2010

Download the posters supplied by the Care Quality Commission which advertise the inspection publicly and provide details of the open sessions at which people can contribute their views.  Also available in an Easy Read format.  We encourage you to display these in your reception or public noticeboard areas.

Public notification posters
Adult Inspection Poster June 2010
Adult Inspection Poster Easy Read June 2010

Open Session posters
Adult Inspection Open Session Poster June 2010
Adult Inspection Open Session Poster Easy Read June 2010