Westminster Council rated ‘good’ for adult social care

Westminster City Council’s adult social care services have been rated “Good” by the healthcare watchdog in one of London’s first inspections since greater scrutiny was brought in. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) assessed nine areas spread across four wider themes in its review of the council’s provision.

All nine were graded a score of three from a possible four, indicating a “Good” standard across the board. The Health and Social Care Act 2022 saw the CQC given responsibility for inspecting councils’ adult social care services.

The watchdog has long inspected care homes, doctors’ surgeries and hospitals, but the duty to assess social care came into effect in April 2023. So far in London, Brent, Harrow and Hounslow have been inspected with Brent and Harrow both being rated “Requires Improvement”, while Hounslow received a rating of “Good” in May this year.

Deputy leader and cabinet member for adult social care, public health and voluntary sector at Westminster City Council, Nafsika Butler-Thalassis, said the result “stands as a reflection of our unwavering commitment to delivering high-quality outcomes for our service users”.

James Bullion, the CQC’s chief inspector of adult social care and integrated care, said the council should be “really pleased” with the assessment, and that it has “built a great foundation on which to progress their current plans and make further changes”.

At an inspection carried out this summer, the watchdog found the council’s adult social care services performed well across all four themes reviewed: how it works with people; providing support; ensuring safety in the system; and leadership.

It praised areas including the council’s support for unpaid carers and its work with partners to deliver reablement services, enabling people to live on their own following hospital discharge. The CQC described the council’s reablement services as “highly effective”, with more than 90 percent of people who received short-term support no longer needing ongoing care.

It reported how frontline teams have positive relationships with partners, with necessary referrals made when they identified an unpaid carer needing support. A greater percentage of carers in Westminster (43.9 percent) are recorded as being satisfied with social services than the average across England (36.83 percent).

The watchdog also noted the council’s work towards reducing inequalities in its workforce through removing gender and ethnicity pay gaps. The report reads: “The local authority used data insight from the Homecare Transformation Programme and increased carers’ pay by £1.50 per hour, which was above the London Living Wage. They also reorganised the homecare neighbourhoods into smaller areas which reduced travel time between care calls.”

The CQC did however draw attention to a number of areas of improvement. These included gaps in how the council was reaching out to carers from seldom heard groups, some people finding the process of assessing their needs as confusing, and mental health provision and support not always being appropriate for all levels of needs.

The full list of gradings were as follows (1 is the lowest rating while 4 is the highest):

• Assessing people’s needs – 3
• Supporting people to lead healthier lives – 3
• Equity in experience and outcomes – 3
• Care provision, integration and continuity of care – 3
• Partnership and communities – 3
• Safe pathways, systems and transitions – 3
• Safeguarding – 3
• Governance, management and sustainability – 3
• Learning, improvement and innovation – 3

Bullion said the council demonstrated a “real commitment” to manage services with good systems in place for assessing people’s needs and planning care. He added it carried out responsive assessments quickly, and made sure people had good access to the information they needed.

“Overall, Westminster City Council should be really pleased with this assessment. They’ve built a great foundation on which to progress their current plans and make further changes. We look forward to returning to see how they’ve done this and how their current plans mature.”

Cllr Butler-Thalassis said: “This success is a collaborative triumph, co-produced alongside service users, their carers, and our partners within the community. Achieving such a high score is a great source of pride for the council, and we can assure you that we will continue to deliver our adult social care services with residents’ and carers’ voices at the heart of what we do.”

CQC Local authority assessment reports.

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