West Berkshire rated 'Good' following new Care Quality Commission assessment

West Berkshire Council has been rated as 'Good' for its performance in ensuring people have access to adult social care and support following a recent assessment by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

They are one of the first councils in the country to be assessed under a new assurance process. This focuses on *nine areas, ranging from approaches to learning, improvement, and innovation to ensuring there is equity in outcomes achieved to leadership.

West Berkshire Council's adult social care service makes sure that older people and vulnerable adults are looked after and supported to live independently. This service accounts for just under half of the council's total budget, with around 2,000 adults supported by the service at any given time. This underpins the council's commitment to prioritise support for those who need it most.

The assessment by the CQC found that the Council performed strongly in both acting to keep vulnerable people safe and working effectively with people to meet their need and helping them to access the relevant care and support.

Focusing on how the Council was performing in terms of the care and support given to service users, the report covers themes including promoting individual wellbeing, preventative services, providing information and advice and its cooperation with partners.

Councillor Patrick Clark, West Berkshire's Executive Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health said,

"We're extremely pleased with this report. It gives us reassurance that we are performing well in the areas providing vital services for vulnerable residents, which we spend a considerable portion of our budget on.

 "We always put people first and this does shine through in the report. It's great that people find us supportive and that our staff feel that they work within a strong, positive culture.

 "We're happy that the report endorses our commitment to caring for the most vulnerable people in our communities. It's an area where we are seeing demand grow - and we have put an additional £12.5m into adult and children's social care this year. However, providing the best possible service is not only important in terms of spend and we know that we can always do better.

 "We're already working to address a few areas marked for improvement, such as digital barriers to people accessing our services - making sure that people can access the services they need when they need them."

James Bullion, CQC's Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care and Integrated Care, said,

"Overall, West Berkshire Council should be pleased with this assessment. They've built a great foundation on which to build their future plans and make improvements. We look forward to returning to see how they've done this and how their current plans mature."

View the full report here.

You can listen to Councillor Patrick Clark and Paul Coe, our Executive Director for People - Adult Social Care, talking about the report below.