Cabinet Member for Health & Social Care responds to scathing report

Date published: 26/11/2007

Councillor Dale Mulgrew, the Council Cabinet Member for Health amp; Social Care has responded to the scathing report into Rochdale Council Adult Care Service by the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI).

Councillor Mulgrew says: "This inspection of Rochdale Council's social services to older people, including homecare, residential and day support, is hugely disappointing. The Council previously had a two star rating for this service, which unfortunately as a result of this inspection has been down graded to a one star rating, with a troubling judgement that the Council are only 'serving some of our older people well'.

"This Lib Dem Administration have accepted the findings of this inspection and although are greatly saddened by it, have acted quickly and decisively to address some of the key concerns the Inspection has discovered. The Commission for Social Care Inspectorate (CSCI) are primarily concerned about the quality and the safety of services provided and a comprehensive action plan will now be quickly implemented to carry out the recommendations that the inspection report contains.

"This plan of improvement will ensure better joint working with health partners when older people are discharged from hospital, and aims to deliver better outcomes for service users over a range of different services that the Council provides to older people.

"The inspection report was particularly scathing about the slow movement in the development of services that enable older people to live more of an independent life with the choice this brings. We note the comments such as:

"'Much of the service is 'off the peg'' and did not address 'specific assessed needs of the service user or carer.'

"It continued to judge that - 'Service users' and carers' expectations were generally low and a number had not been informed of the wider choice of services.'
 
"This criticism also reflected on the Council's poor performance in assisting service users to choose the option of self directed care packages. This is effectively saying that the Council has not offered the service user the type of choice that transferring the homecare service to the independent sector would have brought.

"The Council will now re-commit to introducing the homecare changes which were proposed earlier on in the year. This means full support to the creation of a new 're-ablement Service' and the transfer of the remaining 30% of long term homecare that the Council currently provides over to the independent Sector. Staff and service users have been fully consulted on the changes over the last few months and this engagement will continue as the changes are implemented to ensure minimum disruption and proper communication is undertaken.

"Part of the problem is that the pace of transforming the service and modernising the way it runs is at present too slow. As part of this recovery plan we expect reforms now to be accelerated in response to this inspection.

"There is room for optimism as we believe this is a real awakening for the service and proves to us that we are not looking after our elderly and vulnerable as well as we could do. This will require a rapid response and some radical overhauling so that we can put the necessary reforms into the service. We expect shortly the start of the improvements we all want to see.

"This means we go unwavering and at a higher velocity in delivering change and we in particular want to see 're-ablement' become a huge success.

"This six-week intensive scheme of re-equipping individuals to get back to independent living was the subject of a recently published Department of Health study. It found the stunning value of creating such a concept as it observed that  60% of individuals who undergo a 're-ablement' service after a fall or serious episode of illness will not need to receive any additional care or support for at least the following two years.

"Finally, this Lib Dem administration has plainly demonstrated here that it will respond swiftly with great resolve and in the best interests of Rochdale people to any major challenges. This is a big one to enact change, but quality and value for money are principles we see as underpinning our transformational agenda for this service."