Latest news with #AdultSocialCare
BBC News
5 days ago
- General
- BBC News
Southend council's adult social care rated good by watchdog
Adult social care and support in a town has been rated as good, according to a Care Quality Commission (CQC) City Council's services were assessed by the regulator across nine areas to see how well the authority was meeting its Bullion, the CQC's chief inspector of adult social care and integrated care, said the Essex council should be "really pleased with the many positive findings in our report and their good rating".However, inspectors also advised the council to address digital exclusion and to ensure information was accessible to people whose first language was not English. Mr Bullion said: "We found Southend-on-Sea City Council was delivering good access to adult social care, with a strong focus on equity, inclusion, and prevention."Behind this we saw good leadership, who put people's safety and specific needs at the heart of everything they did."Areas singled out for praise included:Targeted outreach programmes for people with complex needs and support tailored to seldom heard communitiesPeople speaking positively about the care and support they received, and many saying they felt respected, involved and valued during assessments People saying they felt the staff they saw were well trained, competent and understood the needs of the community Strong identity Mr Bullion added: "Many people described a strong cultural identity in Southend-on-Sea, with a shared sense of pride in the area. "The authority was clearly keen to tap into this sense of community, with local hubs, befriending schemes and inclusive events helping foster social inclusion."Less positively, inspectors heard about people with complex needs facing delays accessing help due to shortages in also highlighted some delays around housing adaptations and annual reviews, according to the report. The CQC has a new duty under the 2014 Care Act to assess how local authorities work with their communities and partners to meet their responsibilities. This includes promoting the wellbeing and independence of working-age disabled adults, older people and their unpaid carers to reduce their need for formal support where appropriate. Follow Essex news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
BBC News
16-07-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Leicester City Council's adult social care 'requires improvement'
Adult social care and support in Leicester requires improvement, according to a Care Quality Commission (CQC) City Council's services were assessed by the regulator across nine areas to see how well the authority was meeting its responsibilities, with concerns raised over waiting times and CQC said it found evidence of "some shortfalls" in seven of the nine assessment areas, with the other two areas given a "good standard" city council said the report showed its "substantial capacity and demand pressures" but that the authority was "effective at prioritising urgent support to people" and was "achieving good, individual outcomes for many people". The council's responsibilities include promoting the wellbeing and independence of working age disabled adults, older people, and their unpaid carers to reduce their need for formal support where 2023-24, the council spent £172.5m on adult social care - 22.89% of the total budget - which was £15.3m less than estimated. 'Not easily accessible' The report said some people found there was a lack of face-to-face support with some assessments having been conducted entirely over the telephone, and navigating the council's system was described as "challenging".People experienced language barriers, "which prevented people's access to care and support", the report said online information in non-English languages was "not easily accessible", which posed a challenge for the portion of Leicester's residents whose main language was not regarding waits for reviews for people in the city receiving long-term care was also significantly worse than the England average, according to the example, at the time of the assessment, the CQC found there were 903 people waiting for an occupational therapy assessment, with a median wait time of 220 days and the longest reported waiting time being 815 Bullion, the CQC's chief inspector of adult social care and integrated care, said: "The authority acted promptly when needed, including providing responses within two hours, for same day care, and reviewing care after changes."But people still faced long waits for assessments and regular reviews. Their communication during these waiting periods was limited."The assessment team found the authority failed to properly support unpaid carers to make choices during their the regulator said it found people did not have to wait long for residential, nursing or homecare support, and the authority "worked closely with people with lived experience to shape services". 'Under-funded system' Laurence Mackie-Jones, the city council's strategic director of social care, said: "We don't think this assessment fully reflects the challenges we face in Leicester, or the strengths that exist despite these challenges."We're pleased it recognises the work we do to help people to live independent lives, as that is a key priority for us."Helping people to stay in their homes, taking advantage of the technology that can help them, and accessing direct payments for the support they need is vital in a hugely under-funded care system."We're also very proud of the fact that 85-90% of people agree or strongly agree that the support we provide helps them to live their life, as noted in the CQC report."
The National
13-05-2025
- Business
- The National
A squalid speech from a Prime Minister without principles
A casual listener to Keir Starmer's speech yesterday morning might have thought he'd had a lightbulb moment over the weekend. Perhaps he had reassessed his party's priorities and decided to stop dancing to the Reform UK tune. Alas, no. The chapter to which he was referring was 2019-23, when – under the Conservative government that had steered through Brexit – net migration quadrupled. Take back control? Hardly, says Starmer. The people who deployed that slogan did nothing of the sort. It's almost as though Brexit was a terrible idea, completely mis-sold to voters. But Starmer can't come out and say that, what with his big 'European Union reset' just around the corner and those same voters once again hanging on the every word spoken by Nigel bloody Farage. READ MORE: Labour 'wasted' thousands on GB Energy logo blunder, documents show Starmer also has to pretend his latest package of measures to bring down migration is not a knee-jerk response to the substance-free rabble-rousing of Reform UK. Apparently only complete nerds would think that. 'People who like politics will try to make this all about politics, about this or that strategy, targeting these voters, responding to that party,' he said. 'No. I am doing this because it is right, because it is fair, and because it is what I believe in.' What he believes in, it would seem, is stripping the UK of much-needed care workers just so that he can point to a decline in net migration figures at some unspecified future date. The immigration White Paper points to concern about exploitation of foreign workers using the Adult Social Care visa, and suggests this can only be avoided by scrapping it altogether. The Government points to 'historic levels of poor pay and poor terms and conditions leading to low domestic recruitment', but there are few clues as to how the sector can be radically transformed as a matter of urgency. The Government is 'committed to establishing Fair Pay Agreements which will empower worker, employer and other sector representatives to negotiate improvements in the terms of employment'. I'm sure the 79% of care homes in Scotland with job vacancies will be bracing themselves for a deluge of applications after discerning jobseekers read that. Part of the rationale appears to be research from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) that found low-paid migrant workers who come to the UK and stay here for life end up costing the state money. According to The Times, Keir Starmer's chief of staff Morgan McSweeney is among those who have been urging him to weigh up the long-term costs of legal migration when formulating Labour's policies. While the OBR began publishing estimates of these costs last year, it does not currently include them in its official forecasts because these only consider Treasury spending plans for the next five years. Making policy based on this data might seem a sensible strategy if the care sector was recruiting low-paid staff from overseas for a lark, or to give their care homes more of a multicultural flavour. However, we all know that foreign workers are desperately needed to look after the elderly and vulnerable in a UK with a rapidly ageing population. The Tories, for all their faults, understood this, which is why they exempted those coming to the country via the Health and Social Care Visa route from the new minimum earnings threshold they introduced in December 2023. But at the same time, they banned overseas care workers from bringing dependents with them, in an attempt to fill posts without simultaneously filling up school places and bedrooms in scarce housing. There's hardly been time for the impact of those changes to be measured, but Labour are impatient, and looking for quick fixes that will get them the headline figure they believe they need to fend off Farage. They won't state what figure they have in mind, though, as Starmer has watched previous PMs set targets and fail to meet them and 'going down the failed route is not a sensible way for me'. Ha! It's a brilliant strategy really. Don't specify what exactly you are trying to do – with your grim warnings about the UK becoming an 'island of strangers' – and then no-one can accuse you of failing if you don't manage to achieve it. 'Make no mistake – this plan means migration will fall. That's a promise,' says Starmer. Oh, but also, if it doesn't, they'll try something else: 'Mark my words – we will.' So we'd be making a mistake to think this won't work, but we should mark his words in the event the promise is broken and it doesn't. Is that clear? Asked what his message was for the economically inactive people in the UK who might not wish to work in a care home, Starmer's reply was essentially 'tough shit'. If he thinks Reform UK sympathisers will thank him for leaving their elderly relatives without care, or with carers who would rather be doing anything else, he may be in for a nasty surprise.
