Suffolk County Council’s Adult Social Care service rated Good overall by Care Quality Commission.
Following a period of intense inspection by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), Suffolk County Council has become one of the first councils nationwide to achieve this standard.
Earlier this year CQC announced that 5 local authorities with responsibility for adult social care, including Suffolk, had volunteered to be part of a Local Authority Assessment Pilot, to help CQC develop the new model of inspection to help assess councils against the requirements of the Care Act. This model would then be rolled out across the country with all 153 Local Authorities with responsibility for Adult Social Care being inspected by the commission.
The assessment process began this summer with a request for information to each local authority taking part in the pilot. This collected the written evidence needed to allow CQC to understand how each council is delivering its adult social care services. Following on from this initial ask, the County Council was then required to arrange over 40 different meetings including 4 staff drop-in sessions, with over 150 people, including staff, partners, providers, carers, and people with lived experiences. These meetings allowed the CQC inspection team to meet people directly and ask questions to help further evidence the quality of social care services provided.
CQC’s final report rated the overall quality of Suffolk County Council’s Adult Social Care services as “Good” and highlighted areas of strength including, the quality of its leadership, the culture of learning and support for staff, the range of digital care options available, the good relationships between social care and health colleagues and locality team knowledge and understanding of community needs.
Councillor Beccy Hopfensperger, Cabinet Member for Adult Care at Suffolk County Council said:
“I am delighted, this is a fantastic result for Suffolk County Council, especially for those colleagues working within Adult Social Care.
“I am especially pleased to see areas like Safeguarding rated as good, this is a real acknowledgement of the hard work SCC and partners have put in place over the last few years to learn from every incident and work closely together as a system to ensure the safety of the most vulnerable in our community.
“I believe this rating is also a testament to the high levels of financial investment we as a council have consistently put into Adult Social Care over the years, especially during the dark days of the pandemic, and shows how through imagination and service transformation, we are delivering on our priority to put people’s health and wellbeing at the top of our agenda as a local authority.
“Of course, there is always more that can be done with something as complex as Adult Social Care and we certainly won’t take this overall rating for granted. There are challenges ahead which this report touches upon, but what this rating ultimately should do is give us all confidence that we have the right people and processes in place to provide good quality Adult Social Care services for the people of Suffolk.”
James Bullion, CQC’s chief inspector of adult social care and integrated care, said:
“At this assessment of Suffolk's health and social care services, CQC found dedicated and resilient front-line staff who were committed to delivering high-quality care and support. They were supported by effective leaders who had created a positive culture and used data to inform strategic decisions and drive action.
“People shared the positive experiences they had using the local authority’s services, saying they were compassionate, flexible, and focused on their individual needs.
“It was also encouraging to see Suffolk County Council’s integration with local health partners, and the clear focus they all had on prevention. It was exciting to see them working on innovative approaches in this area, for example using digital equipment to reduce the need for formal care interventions, and increase independence and well-being.
“Moving mental health staff back from the local NHS trust into the local authority was seen as a really positive move. Staff said it had enabled them to be more responsive and provide more holistic and person-centred mental health care and support for Suffolk's residents.
“However, there were also some areas where we’ve told them to make improvements, like improving access to their contact centre which was causing delays in assessments.”
“Suffolk County Council should be really pleased with this assessment, and it means they have a great foundation on which to build more improvements. We look forward to returning to see how they’ve done this.”