Agenda item

The Committee considered a report of the Corporate Director of Adult and Health Services that provided Members with an update on the framework which the Care Quality Commission (CQC) began to use in April 2023 to assess how local authorities discharge their Adult Social Care duties under Part 1 of The Care Act 2014. The report also provided Members with information relating to the update to the Government’s plan for care and support reform, ‘Next steps to Put People at the Heart of Care’ April 2023 (for copy of report see file of minutes).

Lee Alexander, Head of Adult Care was in attendance to present the report and highlighted the main points contained within the report.

In response to a question from Councillor Earley, the Head of Adult Care indicated that there was a significant amount of work that had to be completed for preparing for a CQC assessment. On a positive note, they had a detailed reflection that had enabled them to be into a position where they had stronger insight into what they are doing well in Durham and areas they needed to continue to develop. This had helped to accelerate some of those development and improvement programmes.

The Director of Integrated Community Services indicated that this was an inspection of the local authority not departments, the board of the local authority would be interviewed at some point during an inspection and papers and reports to this committee would be looked at in fine detail. The new regime was built upon children services and Adult Social Care as a sector was out of the habit of inspections. Inspections had always happened for services provided but other parts of the department, data, finance etc had not been inspected for nearly 15 years and they are not in the habit of been inspected so a lot of training was taken place to get up to speed. The proposal was that services would be given a rating and they were very conscious of the importance of receiving a rating that recognised where they are but did not demoralise staff.

Councillor Quinn referred to care homes and such like receiving CQS inspections and asked if Durham County Council carried out any inspections of any of the services that they are commissioning.

The Head of Adult Care responded that they do not undertake inspections but they do undertake quality assurance activity. They commission a large number of social care services in Durham and have a small dedicated group of staff who specialise in safeguarding and where there are any concerns, staff would do work that was sometimes unannounced and not in isolation either so they had a robust system in Durham and worked closely with CQS, ICS, Fire and Rescue and Police. On a regular basis they held a strategic meeting where they shared intelligence which was triangulated.

Councillor Quinn referred to the introduction of Level 2 training across the board which she welcomed but knew that some people would struggle with this. She asked how this would be carried out and if there were any guarantees that staff were actually doing the work and not getting someone else to do the work for them.

The Head of Adult Care responded that the government had identified social care delivery has been in crisis and there were two strands, one strand was additional money been past forward to care providers to increase rates of pay etc. and the second strand which was emerging but had not been rolled out was the National Care Certificate – Level 2.

Councillor McKeon referred to paragraph 17 of the report, second bullet point and asked if the new framework also looked at the council’s interactions with intermediate care beds and the discharging system.

The Head of Adult Care responded that this was likely and they expected the CQS to determine which areas they wished to drill down into and would vary between local authorities.

The Principal Overview and Scrutiny Officer indicated that Members who have or sit on the Children and Young People’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee would be aware of the work carried out in that committee to ensure that the work undertaken contributed to the CYP inspection framework and improvement plan that was developed following the Ofsted inspection process some years ago. They would like to see that relationship developed and enhanced for this pending assurance framework for Adults Social Care. The introduction of an assurance framework for Adults Social Care, notwithstanding the work and reports received updating on a number of areas of the service would be welcomed moving forward and the scrutiny team would work with the Committee to support its role in that ongoing process.

Resolved: (i) That the contents of the report be noted and that a further update be received in six months.

(ii) That AWHOSC be informed when CQC notifies Durham County Council that it would be undertaking the assurance process of the delivery of adult social care duties.