Birmingham maintains ‘good’ rating for adult social care

Birmingham is one of only five local authorities to have been inspected twice under the CQC assessment framework. We have achieved ‘good’ in both assessments.

The assessments focus on four key themes: working with people, providing support, ensuring safety, and leadership. CQC assess a range of evidence including our processes, people’s experience, feedback from staff and leaders and feedback from our partners. 

We know there are areas that still need to improve but we are pleased the CQC has recognised what we are doing well. The report confirms that we are doing a good job in keeping people safe but we know we don’t always live up to people’s expectations and we remain focused on ensuring more consistent, timely experiences for people and carers across the city.

The assessment team found:

• The authority worked well with partners to provide joined up care that effectively met people’s needs. Leaders monitored and evaluated the impact of their partnership work. For example, analysis showed that their prevention services had led to reduced emergency department attendances for people with mental health needs
• Staff carried out care assessments professionally and considered each person’s individual needs, involving their whole support network and helping people to remain independent at home for as long as possible.
• Staff and leaders worked flexibly and adapted quickly to meet people’s needs effectively. They made use of local support networks to achieve best outcomes for their local communities.
• The local authority had made changes to its senior leadership structures, which built on existing frameworks and gave leaders clear roles and responsibilities. These changes had a positive impact, and leaders were addressing the waiting times and safeguarding concerns.
• Birmingham’s range of services – including dementia and brain health community activities, falls prevention, befriending, peer mentoring and support, creative arts and mental wellbeing programmes – helped people achieve positive outcomes.

However:

• Some people told inspectors they would have liked more support when moving between different services. The local authority recognised they needed to develop links with local NHS services further.
• People and unpaid carers using social care services didn’t always feel safe, as there were delayed responses and a lack of clarity on referrals for safeguarding concerns.
• Some people found emergency placements hard to access, as there were shortages in some specialist and complex support services, which led to out of area placements.

Stuart Lackenby, Executive Director Adult Social Care and Health, said:

“We are incredibly proud to have been assessed again as ‘good’ by the care quality commission.

“However, we recognise that we still have work to do to improve our services. Sometimes we don’t offer people support that meets our own expectations, people can wait too long for our intervention, and we don’t get everything right.

“The recognition in the report of the hard work by all our staff and partners is important as they make a difference everyday supporting some of the most vulnerable people in our city, sometimes in difficult circumstances.  Feedback from our staff helped contribute to CQCs understanding of what we do well.  This has been a challenging time for our city, but we are very proud of what we have achieved and will build on this positive result to continue to improve the experiences of the people we support.”

Ends