Agenda item

The Committee will receive reports from the preceding Bournemouth and Poole Councils on the 2018/19 survey outcomes regarding Adult Social Care Complaints and information on how BCP Council is managing the statutory complaints process for Adult Social Care.

The Principal Officer Planning and Quality Assurance and the Quality Assurance Team Manager presented a report, a copy of which has been circulated and appears as Appendix ‘D’ of these minutes in the Minute Book.

The Committee were provided with an update on the statutory responsibility under the Local Authority Social Services and National Health Service Complaints (England) regulations 2009 to report complaints and other representations about Health and Adult Social Care.

It was particularly highlighted that work was underway to align the complaints service across BCP Council, which had previously been managed by three separate authorities. BCP Council had begun to manage feedback on Adult Social Care for Christchurch and the service across the three areas would shortly be managed by one team.

The report provided a summary of the feedback and learning from the predecessor Councils, Bournemouth Borough Council and Poole Borough Council. The summary of learning included a need to improve communication and the perceived standard of service and professional practice.

It was also highlighted that complaints training would be reviewed and a new online learning module would be available for all BCP staff. Additionally, in 2019/20 learning workshops would be rolled out using the Bournemouth and Poole complaints process to improve service delivery.

The Committee were also given details of some of the 20 national performance indicators as well as information on additional feedback and engagement activities that were taking place, particularly the rolling programme of care provider events.

It was highlighted that performance, statutory surveys and customer engagement were all also in the process of being aligned for adult social care. This and the complaints work would feed into a Quality Assurance and Standards Framework.

A number of questions were raised and discussed by members some of which included;

• Details of the timescales for responding to complaints;
• Whether the higher proportion of white irish, any other black and women raising complaints in Bournemouth was evidence of discrimination, information on this could be circulated after the meeting;

·         That some complainants make several complaints a year. If someone does not have a resolution following the first complaint, they should report it to the LGSO for an independent review;

·         There are complaints that don’t make the formal statistics e.g. if someone doesn’t want to make a formal complaint or if something is dealt with under a normal care management process;

·         The need for improvement in Poole regarding the Carer Survey. Targeted work was carried out with client groups to drill down and understand the findings from the survey;

·         That the quality of life score for Bournemouth would be provided after the meeting;

·         That the surveys were currently being developed and would be sent out as BCP Council however the team would ensure results were considered in detail;

·         The response rate to the survey by carers. This would be circulated following the meeting;

·         Concern around the question on ‘having enough contact with people I like’. It was highlighted there was work on tackling loneliness underway.

RESOLVED that: -

(a)  The Committee agreed to note the update.