Social Care News

CSSIW annual report: the key findings

The Care and Social Services Inspectorate (CSSIW)'s chief inspector, Imelda Richardson, published her annual report 2010-2011 on February 20. The key findings from the report included: Local authorities and other social care services are increasingly working together across regional and organisational boundaries to deliver innovative and sustainable services for the people of Wales. The best care homes and domiciliary care services combined good leadership with clear vision and purpose, recruited good staff locally and took care to look after them and those using services. The people involved in providing social care are better skilled and qualified and care providers are listening more to their customers. The lack of continuity of staff continues to be a concern for people who use services. Good safeguarding practice and joint working between agencies can weaken once the initial crisis is over. Quality of outcomes for people across Wales varied. More needs to be done to consistently deliver good quality assessments and care management for both children and adults. In children’s services improvements are needed to achieve better support services for children in need and improved support for looked after children from local authority education services. In services for adults there are significant waiting lists for some services and more needs to be done to achieve a notable shift towards supporting older people in the community rather than in care homes. Transforming services, in line with the aspirations of the Welsh Government’s Sustainable Social Services will require vision coupled with medium and long term planning in partnership with Health Services.