Members to discuss quality of care in Norfolk, as proportion of good care begins to increase

Work to improve the quality of social care in Norfolk is beginning to gain momentum, with more providers achieving good or outstanding Care Quality Commission inspection ratings over the last six months.

Norfolk County Council is working with care providers and partners across health and social care to ensure more people have access to high quality care, whether that's at home, or in residential or nursing care.

Norfolk and Waveney Integrated Care System (ICS) launched the Social Care Quality Improvement Programme in August 2022 to try to increase the numbers of good care providers in the county. Whilst there are more outstanding care providers in Norfolk than nationally, and fewer inadequate providers, there are too many that require improvement.

Since the programme launched, the proportion of providers judged good or better by the Care Quality Commission has improved month on month and now stands at 71% - up from 69% in December 2022.

Members of Norfolk County Council's People and Communities Select Committee will discuss the improvement programme when they meet on 14 July.

Cllr Fran Whymark, Chair of the Committee, said: "Raising the quality of care in Norfolk is one of our key priorities in Adult Social Care and it is important as a committee that we discuss how the programme is working.

"It is positive that we are seeing month on month improvements in quality but we want to ensure that this momentum continues, so that more people can have access to good social care.

"This programme is being delivered in partnership with care providers and the NHS and I am pleased to see that care providers are taking such an active role in supporting one another and sharing best practice.

"No single agency can deliver good health and social care outcomes for people on its own so bringing our providers, commissioners and supporting partners together is vital for improving quality."

Norfolk Care Association (NorCA) is playing a key role in the improvement programme by putting on best practice workshops and coordinating peer support.

The county council and NHS has enhanced its auditing of care providers and is taking several other actions to further improve care quality including:

• Piloting the use of experts by experience (people who have used services) to support review of services for people with a learning disability or autism;
• Increasing engagement and feedback opportunities;
• Changing how it manages contracts, specifically around performance management;
• Using data better to monitor quality;
• Changing the commissioning of home care, to ensure that there is better care coverage in the county and the council has stronger relationships with a smaller number of principal providers.

The People and Communities Committee will discuss the programme when it meets at County Hall at 10am on Friday, 14 July. To download the papers, go to the People and Communities Select Committee webpage and click on the relevant date under the 'Scheduled Meeting Date' column.