Care Quality Commission rates Sunderland City Council as good for adult social care provision

The CQC has a new duty to assess how local authorities work with their communities to meet the needs of adults needing social care including promoting the wellbeing and independence of working age disabled adults, older people, and their unpaid carers to reduce their need for formal support where appropriate.

Where support is needed it should provide people with choice and control of how their care needs are met.

CQC looked at nine areas spread across four themes to assess how well the authority is meeting their responsibilities.

The local authority scored three in all nine categories, giving it an overall good rating.

Inspectors highlighted how the Local Authority “worked well with partners to proactively improve the health and wellbeing for people in Sunderland” and how people can “access equipment and minor home adaptations to maintain their independence and continue living in their own homes”.

The report also identified systems in place to address social isolation as well as protecting people from abuse and neglect.

James Bullion, CQC’s chief inspector of adult social care and integrated care, said: “At this assessment of Sunderland City Council’s adult social care services, we found leaders had a passion for providing good care.

“They had a clear understanding of where they needed to address issues and were making continuous improvements to benefit people living in Sunderland.

“For example, there was a specific focus on falls prevention in response to a high number of falls in the older population. The initiative was introduced to understand the underlying reasons for the falls and implement strategies to reduce them. This had been a huge success, and significantly reduced falls related hospital admissions.

“There was a strong focus on reablement to support people to remain independent at home, reducing the need for formal residential care. Sunderland also provided support to help people move out of homelessness and to be able to live independently.”

Mr Bullion reserved special praise for the staff putting the policies and plans into practice.

He added: “We heard about staff providing person centred care to someone who had frequent hospital admissions. Staff supported them to move to alternative accommodation to better suit their needs and this reduced their formal care and support needs by 98%.

“Due to the positive work staff were doing to support people, they had been shortlisted for a team of the year award for Social Worker of the Year Awards.

“Sunderland was aware it wasn’t always easy for unpaid carers to visit drop-in sessions or attend activities available for them, so they had created an app as an alternative way of reaching them. This helped unpaid carers with support, improving awareness of services available and to connect carers with each other.

“The local authority recognised further improvements were needed to improve the whole journey and experience of carers.

“Overall, Sunderland City Council should be pleased with the many positive findings in our report and are already building on this with further improvement plans. We look forward to returning to see how they have built on these areas of good practice and how their plans mature.”