The Care Quality Commission (CQC), has rated Gateshead Borough Council as good, in how well they are meeting their responsibilities to ensure people have access to adult social care and support under the Care Act (2014).
CQC has a new duty under the 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. Where support is needed it should provide people with choice and control of how their care needs are met.
CQC looked at nine areas spread across four themes to assess how well the authority is meeting their responsibilities in order to create their good rating. CQC has given each of these nine areas a score out of four with one being the evidence shows significant shortfalls, and four showing an exceptional standard.
- Assessing people’s needs – 2
- Supporting people to lead healthier lives – 2
- Equity in experience and outcomes – 2
- Care provision, integration and continuity of care - 3
- Partnership and communities – 3
- Safe pathways, systems and transitions - 3
- Safeguarding - 3
- Governance, management and sustainability - 3
- Learning, improvement and innovation - 3
James Bullion, CQC’s chief inspector of adult social care and integrated care, said:
At this assessment of Gateshead Borough Council’s adult social care services, we found the authority had a good understanding of the challenges the local population faced. It was working well with other partner organisations to address challenges around deprivation and health inequalities to improve people’s health and wellbeing.
It had a real focus on supporting people living in Gateshead to stay healthy and avoid the need for formal support where possible. For example, we heard about work to improve people’s diet and nutrition. We also saw initiatives to encourage people at risk of falls to do more physical activity which would improve their muscle strength and reduce the likelihood of future falls.
Staff were good at providing access to support that was tailored to their specific needs. Gateshead had a specialist team who assessed and supported people with a learning disability. We heard about good outcomes for people, such as someone who was supported to access education and hobbies which were important to them which improved their wellbeing.
The local authority and health partners had also set up a rapid response service, which supported people in non-medical urgent situations. Staff were positive about this service, which helped keep people safe and avoided them being admitted to hospital.
Gateshead knew they had work to do around waiting times and we found improvements had already been made to reduce the time it took for people to access support in the 12 months before our assessment. However, there were other waiting times which Gateshead needs to address, such as the time it was taking for people to receive home adaptations after occupational therapy assessments. This is important as it can help people remain independent in their own homes for longer and also prevent hospital readmissions.
The assessment team also found there was still some work to be done to improve the experience of unpaid carers. Some carers told us there were delays for assessments for the person they were caring for, and difficulty accessing information and advice. However, the local authority was aware of this and was implementing a new strategy and caregivers support service, to help improve the situation.
Overall, Gateshead Borough Council should be really pleased with the many positive findings in our report and are already building on this with further improvement plans. We look forward to returning to see how they have built on areas of good practice and how their plans mature.
The assessment team found:
- Waiting times for assessments had reduced over the previous year in some areas.
- People’s care plans were developed and implemented in a timely way.
- People received assessments from teams trained in how to meet their needs.
- The introduction of a new IT system had improved staff’s ability to assess people’s needs in a more personalised way.
- The local authority had a reablement team who automatically contacted people discharged from hospital, to check they were managing well and identify any further support needs.
- There were effective systems and processes in place to make sure people were protected from abuse and neglect.
However, the assessment team also found:
- People were able to access advice easily, but it was sometimes harder to access information outside of office hours.
- People received a timely financial assessment but there were a number of complaints regarding charging for care, which the local authority was working to improve.
The assessment will be published on CQC’s website on 21 March.