Results of a Reading inspection on two key aspects of community care services that the Council provides to its residents have been announced.
The inspection took place in July 2009.
Following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) of the Council’s Safeguarding of vulnerable adults and its provision of Choice and Control in community care services for elderly people, inspectors have concluded in a detailed report that the Council is providing an adequate service in these areas.
These results will now go towards a fuller evaluation of the Council’s performance in a wider Annual Performance Assessment of adult social care, due to be published on December 2nd.
Safeguarding of adults
The report determined that the Reading Council is doing a good job in ensuring people at risk from abuse or harm are protected, thanks to the effective management of safeguarding arrangements.
The work of the West Berkshire Safeguarding Adults Partnership Board has been strengthened.
The Council was also praised for leading community safety initiatives that were helping to keep people in their own homes and that the range of support and services for older people had increased.
The report recommends that the Reading Council should continue to improve its recording of alerts, involve service users in planning and ensure that IT systems identify and highlight cases.
Choice and Control for older people
In terms of increasing Choice and Control for older people, the inspection team praised the quality of public information but highlighted information did not always reach people.
The Reading Council, along with its partners, is working to ensure residents are better informed about support services in Reading and is developing a single point of contact for adult social care.
Reading Borough Council has also pledged to continue to work with and consult carers on how it can improve support to them in their vital caring role.
The Council is also committed to fully involving local older people in planning and developing services and will work to ensure that the very successfully re-launched Reading Older People’s Partnership will go from strength to strength.
A wide range of actions is already in place or being implemented to deliver further improvement in both safeguarding and increasing Choice and Control.
A new Reading service user and carer involvement officer has been appointed to the safeguarding team, who will work with a panel of carers to improve and monitor the distribution and availability of information. An online directory of services will also be produced.
For improving Choice and Control, the Council is promoting a carers’ breaks and opportunities fund to offer breaks for carers, tailored to their needs.
Following the suggestions for improvement included in the CQC inspection report, Reading Borough Council has produced a detailed action plan, outlining further steps it will take to enhance services.
Mike Orton, Lead Councillor for Community Care at Reading, said: "The safeguarding of vulnerable adults is vital and nobody involved in this work can ever relax or be complacent. This very rigorous inspection has concluded that Reading’s Safeguarding of adults is adequate due to the effective management of Safeguarding arrangements.
"Since the time of the evidence being given to inspectors, there has been further improvement in the recording of alerts made to the Council.
"The Council continues to improve its provision to elderly people that helps them to live full and independent lives for as long as possible. The report on reablement on tonight’s Cabinet agenda is a major example of this."
The CQC also found that the Reading Council’s capacity to improve in both these areas is promising.
This year the CQC – formerly the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) – introduced a more stringent framework nationally for assessing performance of local authorities. It includes a new approach to service inspections, which is a tougher test of performance.
Reading Borough Council
