Issue - meetings

Report of the Head of Adult Social Care.

The Committee considered the report of the Head of Adult Social Care informing the Committee of the performance of Adult Social Care Services in responding to complaints received from 1 April 2016 to 31 March 2017. The report set out an executive summary; current legislation and an overview of the Adult Social Care complaints procedure; Adult Social Care complaints; cases submitted to the Local Government Ombudsman; compliments received; learning from complaints; and conclusions and recommendations.

The report indicated that complaints had fallen by 36% since the previous year and work had been undertaken with service users and Providers to reduce the number of complaints quarter by quarter learning from complaints. Details of complaints submitted to the Local Government Ombudsman were also published. Complaints regarding attitude and behaviour of staff were often difficult to determine and training was undertaken to avoid repetition and explain the changes being undertaken by the Council.

Tina Wilkins, Head of Adult Social Care was in attendance to present the report and to respond to questions put by Members of the Committee.

A Member of the Committee raised the following issue and a summary of the response provided is outlined below:-

·         Whilst the number of complaints were provided within the report, it would be useful in future to be aware of percentages in order to fully ascertain accessible data as evidence.

There were about 5,500 service users, not including the Community Equipment Store, as this would take the figure to some 9,000 to 10,000 service users.

RESOLVED: That

(1)       the report and its findings be noted; and

(2)       the Head of Adult Social Care be requested to consider including illustrating complaints with the use of percentages in future reports.