Inspection of Older Adults Services: Torfaen County Borough Council
Our findings and recommendations for Older Adult Services.
We undertook an inspection jointly with Healthcare Inspectorate Wales (HIW) (External link), and explored how well Torfaen County Borough Council is promoting independence and preventing escalating needs for older adults.
Key Findings
Strengths
Well-being – the local authority demonstrates a good understanding of its strengths, areas of challenge and areas requiring improvement.
People – voice and choice – Torfaen County Borough Council has embraced the principles of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act (SSWBA) and is supporting people to voice their wishes about what matters to them and support them to have an independent advocate, if necessary to strengthen their voice.
Partnerships, integration and co-production – the local authority has a positive and maturing relationship with the health board. We also found positive strategic partnership working between social services and housing services in considering the housing needs of residents.
Prevention and early intervention – the local authority has reorganised to ensure a preventative and early intervention approach to meeting the care and support needs of people who require help. People are supported to remain independent and where possible remain in or return to their own homes.
Areas for improvement
Wellbeing – more work is required to develop performance measures to monitor the impact of the patch based teams.
People voice and choice – the local authority should work toward ensuring communities and partners better understand the changing nature of adult social care provision.
Partnerships, integration and co-production – more opportunities could be taken for structured joint learning across health and social care specifically to drive integration in community resource teams.
Prevention and early intervention – The local authority should consider the promotion of third sector organisations in the development and delivery of the care and support and preventative services to promote community resilience.
Next steps
CIW and HIW expect the local authority and local health board to give attention to areas for improvement in the report. CIW will monitor progress through its on-going performance evaluation activity with Torfaen County Borough Council. To view all our findings and recommendations read the full report below.