The Care Quality Commission has praised improvements in adult social care but called for a renewed effort to eliminate poor quality services. Across the South West, there has been an overall improvement in councils' social care services, although the region as a whole remains below the national average.
Five councils - Dorset, Gloucestershire, Isles of Scilly, Plymouth and Wiltshire - have moved upwards from performing adequately to well this year, whereas the performance of two councils was down. Poole dropped to just adequate. Somerset dropped from excellent to well.This means the South West region now has 14 authorities performing well and two councils performing adequately compared to last year's breakdown of 10 councils which were excellent or good and six who were adequate. This year no councils in the South West are rated as excellent or poor.
This assessment is CQC'sfirst major statement on the quality of adult social care, drawing on four documents which provide:
An assessment of 148 councils' social care services for adults, including performance against seven outcomes set by the government An analysis of whether councils are commissioning the best possible care, whether this is from the private, voluntary or public sector An update on the performance of 24,000 care homes, home care agencies, nursing agencies and shared lives schemes looking at whether quality is improving CQC's formal response to the government's Green Paper on social care, called "Shaping the future of care together". For more details please see national press release (below regional press release) attached "Our statement on the quality of adult social care" on the CQC website