Inspectors praise adult care services

Rochdale Borough Council’s adult care service has been praised following inspection by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in a report released this week.

Overall, the service is classified as performing ‘Well’ out of a possible 4 categories- ‘Excellent’, ‘Well’, ‘Adequate’ and ‘Poor’.

The service was rated ‘excellent’ in 2 out of the 7 categories, which is an improvement on the 1 ‘Excellent’ received in 2009. The council has also gone from performing ‘Adequate’ to ‘Well’ in the category of increased choice and control.

This is the third year that the service has shown continuous improvement in delivering services for adults in the borough. CQC inspect adult care services every year to look at how they are improving the quality of life for vulnerable adults.

The continued improvement this year has been particularly accredited to: 

• Improvement to carers’ services
• Further development of the re-ablement service which allows people to live independently.
• Introduction of personal budgets for service users who are now able to exercise more control over the care they receive.

Noreen Akhtar from the Sudden area, is a full time carer to her 9-year-old son and can testify first hand at how Carers services are crucial in her day to day life: “I access carers services often for support, advice and a helping hand. It’s great to meet people in my situation, share my worries, ups and downs and just have a chat! It’s extremely valuable in the borough and it’s great to see this improving year on year”

Sheila Downey, Executive Director for adult care services, said: “This independent assessment rates adult care services in the borough as good or excellent in all areas of the service. This is a fantastic achievement and I would like to thank all the staff and other people who work alongside us. Many people worked very hard and ‘went the extra mile’ and the support of the council more widely for adult care is much appreciated”

“The challenge in the months and years to come is to continue to improve; designing services that meet peoples needs and that are affordable for the future. We are determined to carry on making progress and look forward to working with local people to help us make sure adult social care services in the borough are amongst the best in the country”