Delivering the difference

Sunderland City Council: Care Act Assessments & Reviews

THE CHALLENGE

Sunderland City Council (SCC) were experiencing challenges across their adult social care services with a significant number of overdue care act assessments and reviews. The service did not have the internal capacity to deal with the demand and ensure they were meeting their statutory duties. Sunderland wanted to reduce their waiting lists across a 7-month period back to manageable levels and still ensure that assessments were being delivered to a high standard whilst taking into account resources available in the community.

THE SOLUTION

Working in partnership with SCC, Attenti Consulting created a bespoke programme which was fully tailored to address the needs of all those drawing on services within requested timeframes. Attenti’s infrastructure implementation methodology ensured that Attenti practitioners were maximising independence through meaningful engagement with individuals by focusing on quality and delivering strength-based, creative work. The programme was entirely outsourced with agreed quality standards in place, weekly reporting on progress and performance to ensure outcomes were met on time. Attenti’s internal quality assurance team ensured all assessments were meeting agreed quality standard which reduced the internal workload for Sunderland and allowed senior leadership to focus other areas of their services, improvement, and other areas under review by the CQC. Attenti consulting successfully completed 1006 reviews and assessments in 7 months. Attenti were also commissioned to provide an independent decision on one to one care with a provider. This mediation was agreed by both parties with the outcomes binding, helping to resolve a long standing challenge and reduce the time spent on the relationship internally.

INFRASTRUCTURE AND DELIVERY

• A team of expert Social Work assessors and highly qualified Quality Assurors utilised to complete the project

• 4 Week implementation - familiarised with Sunderland’s offering in the community to ensure Attenti workers could deliver strength-based work

• Collaboratively designed Quality Assurance checklist

• Sunderland Project information pack and process flow created

• Weekly Reporting on progress to the service and weekly meetings with delivery team

• Assessor completion time deadline set and trajectory of planned performance created to keep delivery of programme on time.

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