Issue - meetings

Report of the Cabinet Member for Health and Care

The Council has a duty to publish a report annually on the activity of the Statutory Complaints and Representation Service. Members now considered the Adults Social Care Annual Report 2020/21, detailing the nature of complaints and the Council’s response to these during the period April 2020 to March 2021.

Members heard from the Cabinet Member for Health and Care and from the Complaints Manager. The complaints process was shared with them and the main reasons for complaints were highlighted, these being: financial assessment and/or contribution; poor communication; case management; charges not being discussed; and delay in receiving services.

The Committee noted that, following a request last year, the Annual Reports had been prepared for earlier scrutiny this year and the Vice-Chairman thanked the Complaints Manager for this. The Committee scrutinised detail of the report, including;

·         staffing issues, whether there were enough social services staff and if their individual caseloads were manageable;

·         the complexity of information shared around financial contributions, the stress this could cause for families and service users, and whether social care should be free at the point of access, as health care;

·         responding to complaints adding to the workload of staff, as this was extra to their “day job”;

·         benchmarking against other local authorities around the number and type of complaint as well as responses and the work of the Complaints Teams, including the timeliness of processes;

·         the role of the Ombudsman;

·         the importance of effective communication; and,

·         whether calls should be recorded.

Members were pleased to note the compliments received and were aware that, as many of the front-line services for Adults Social Care now sat with the Midlands Partnership Foundation Trust (MPFT), most of the compliments were made to them.

The Cabinet Member for Health and Care informed the Committee that she intended to consider the detail shared with service users and their families around financial contribution and charges, to ensure the information given was in the simplest form and easily understandable.

The Committee were pleased to note that organisational learning from complaints continued to be a key part of this process. They also asked for percentage increase and/or decrease figures for compliments made during this period when compared to figures in the previous Annual Report.

RESOLVED:

 That,

a)     the Annual Report of the Customer Feedback and Complaints Service, Adults Social Services 2020/21 be endorsed;

b)    the Complaints Manager be congratulated on the earlier production of the report and on its detail and quality; and

c)    percentage comparison figures be given for the number of compliments received in this Annual Report compared to the report of 2019/20.