Turnaround for Adult Social Care Services
Thursday 25th November
2010
A report published today confirms a dramatic
turnaround in the quality of social care services for vulnerable
adults and older people in Bedford Borough.
The Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) assessment
of Bedford Borough Council’s Adult Social Care Services in 2009 –
10 grades the Council as ‘performing well’, with five out of seven
areas rated under the performing well category. This is in marked
contrast to last year’s annual report relating to performance in
the final year of the former County Council, which indicated that
services had deteriorated further from their previous grading of
‘performing adequately with uncertain capacity to improve’.
The CQC noted that despite inheriting a
‘challenging improvement agenda’, the council has worked in a
focused and determined manner and has achieved significant
improvement across all aspects of service provision.
The turnaround is attributed in the report to
a clear corporate support and determination to make the required
improvements in relation to the councils safeguarding practice,
with embedded monitoring and reporting through to the Chief
Executive, Philip Simpkins, and the Mayor, Dave Hodgson. Also
listed is the strong and focused leadership by the management team
of Adults Services and significant strengthening of strategic
leadership and ownership of the safeguarding improvement agenda
across all relevant partner agencies.
Cllr Nicky Attenborough, portfolio holder for
Adults Services at Bedford Borough Council, said: “It’s very
tempting to give ourselves a big pat on the back, and I am very
proud of the work of our management team in order to achieve this
very pleasing report; however this is, and will always be,
work in progress. We will continue to strive towards yet more
improvements in respect of delivering services to vulnerable adults
and older people. We will focus on our ambitious plans going
forward. Although significant progress has been made, and although
Adult Social Services are now deemed to be graded as serving people
well overall, there are still areas for improvement and in order to
do this we will continue to fully consult with service users and
their carers.”
Mayor Dave Hodgson added: “The new grading
confirms the significant ongoing progress we are making in turning
around the quality of adult services in Bedford Borough, after this
Council inherited an unacceptable situation in April last year. I
stress that this is an ongoing process, as we continue to improve
and drive up the standard of services for vulnerable adults and
older people.”
The report also revealed a number of areas
where the council has exceeded its performance targets and it has
achieved performance improvement at a greater pace than
expected. This is particularly noted in relation to carer
services, the roll out of self directed support, improvement of
assessment timeframes and occupational therapy waiting times.