Issue - meetings

The attached report is for members to note.

The Committee was informed that the management of Adult Social Care complaints had continued to improve year on year and this was encouraging for the service.  At the same time, compliments also continued to increase year on year showing that the service was getting things right.

There were a number of changes that may have an impact on complaints over the next few years including the introduction and impact of the Care Act; the changes that were currently being considered by the Local Government Ombudsman who was consulting on these changes, and the proposed introduction of an Appeals Process which was being considered for all decisions.  The implications of these would need to be considered by the Complaints & Information Team and it will have to look at how this would impact on Havering Adult Social Care in the long term.

As with all local authorities, there was the added challenge of having to balance the services with the reduced available resources and decreasing budgets which could have an impact on how it dealt with complaints.  It was important to ensure that information was captured in a meaningful way to assist services in identifying areas that might require improvement as well as those that were implementing good practice.  Members were reminded that it should be noted that there would be a change in how information was going to be obtained with the transfer across to the present CRM system, but the Complaints & Information Team would need to ensure that the relevant data for reporting was maintained.

The Committee was reminded that in the previous year’s report it was highlighted that consideration was needed in relation to Public Health complaints.  These would be published separately on their own web page.

The Committee’s attention was then drawn to a number of aspects contained within the report concerning some unusual aspects of the out-turn reports, for example: The number of cases dealt with by the LGO had fallen from 10 to eight (and six of those had either not been investigated or had been discontinued or that no maladministration had been found).  Complaints overall had fallen from 123 (2011/12) to 108.

During the last year the Complaints teams had been reorganised and re-structured – in part because of internal changes and also to prepare for the impact of the Care Act.  Complaints concerning Commissioning had fallen from 20 to 14, but there was a corresponding increase in complaints concerning External Homecare from 17 to 24.  The largest percentage fall was recorded by the Preventative Team where the fall had been from 13 to six.

Members asked about various elements within the report, in particular: the matter of staff behaviour, what were the outcomes? In reply the Service stated that this was generally addressed by further training.  Where there were disputes, the primary cause was largely due to the charges being raised and that some service users did not understand them fully.

An observation was made concerning the targets for complaint responses being missed and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 23

The Committee will receive the Adult Social Care Complaints Annual Report (attached).

The Committee are asked to note the report.

The Sub-Committee received the Adult Social Care Complaints, Comments and Compliments Annual Report.  It noted that there had been a slight increase in complaints between 2012/13 and 2013/14.  A breakdown of the complaints by service area was explained.  The highest area of complaint was about external homecare however this service had the largest number of clients.

The majority of complaints in relation to “dispute” decision were around charges linked to the level of care provided for home care/ residential care and the allocation of personal budget. “Non-delivery of service” and “level of service” was also linked to “dispute” decision which have both increased from the previous year and were around provision of services, particularly in relation to adaptations/ equipment where it was determined that there was no social care need to justify the adaptation/ equipment requested.

The response times had improved slightly. There had been a slight increase in the number of informal complaints responded to within 10 working days and improvements for formal complaints responded to within 10 work days by 58%.

Recording of monitoring information had improved from previous years.  Methods of contact for 2012/13 were mainly traditional e.g. letter, email, telephone.  With the direction towards online communication, alternative methods should still be made available.

It was noted that there had been 102 compliments made to the service which was almost the same as the complaints (108).  The total number of member enquiries received during 2013/14 was 76, a 30% increase from 2012/13.  75% were responded to within 10 days.

The Sub-Committee noted the action plan and the areas for improvement.