Adult social care services in Hackney ‘need improvement’ with some waiting two years for assessment

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) found some people could wait years for assessment. Photograph: London Borough of Hackney

An independent watchdog has found Hackney’s adult social care services are in need of improvement after finding some people were waiting up to two years for an assessment.

On Friday (6 February) the Care Quality Commission (CQC) published its most recent findings into the borough’s social care offering and concluded that the service ‘Requires Improvement’.

Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care and Integrated Care, Chris Badger, said that while most people who asked for a remote social care assessment had contact with the council on the first day, others who were deemed as lower risk were sometimes waiting up to two years.

“Hackney didn’t always communicate clearly with people, which left some unsure about what would happen next”, Mr Badger said.

Chris Badger, Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care and Integrated Care. Photograph: Care Quality Commission (CQC)

“Carers told us they didn’t always understand what support was available to them[…] However, carers were involved in improvements, including developing a carers’ strategy shaped by their priorities”.

The chief inspector added that people with complex needs were not getting enough support, noting that more than half (58%) of people with learning disabilities who needed residential care lived outside London.

“Hackney Council hadn’t engaged with these residents to understand how living away from home affected them and their families”, he said.

The CQC identified further weaknesses within Hackney’s social care services, including that:

• Major home adaptations were taking an average of 12 months to complete
• Only 16 per cent of people who needed services were getting direct payments
• Some young people transitioning from children’s to adult social care were experiencing gaps in support
• Hackney’s website was hard to access for some, leading to “digital exclusion”

However, the watchdog commended the council for:

• Providing “stable, visible and approachable” leadership
• Embedding equality, diversity and inclusion and a ‘strong’ anti-racist culture in adult social care
• Cutting financial assessment waiting lists “significantly”
• Meeting people’s assessed needs well
• Providing staff with good access to training and development
• Tackling the waiting list backlog by commissioning a private firm to complete 300 additional assessments

Responding to the CQC’s assessment, Hackney Council highlighted that it scoring 62 out of a possible 100 marks was the highest possible score within the ‘Requires Improvement’ rating, which ranges between 39 and 62 points.

The council added that the most recent NHS performance measures (ASCOF) found resident satisfaction for adult social care in Hackney was currently at 61.4%, higher than the London average. The average satisfaction score across England is 65.4%.

Cllr Chris Kennedy, Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care, Voluntary Sector and Culture, welcomed the report as a “fair and honest reflection of where we are on our journey”, adding that the council was “not complacent” about the situation.

“We are working tirelessly to fix what we need. Our latest data already shows us ranking 5th in London for quality of life, and we will keep pushing until that excellence is felt by every resident and carer in Hackney”, he said.

Cllr Kennedy added that the ASCOF scores showed the council was “on the right track, especially given the 40% increase in demand we’ve seen for our support since 2020”.

The council said it was already making a suite of changes to how it commissioned supported living, residential care, and direct payments in the borough.

Meanwhile, there are “future plans” to improve the information available on its website, reduce waiting times and make it easier for carers to access support.