Adult Social Care in Bolton was awarded the top rating less than one year after a new look department was established. Bolton Council's Adult Services department is one of two in Greater Manchester and 13 nation-wide to be awarded three-stars. It was described as "serving all people well, with excellent capacity for improvement."
The judgement came in the latest round of national performance ratings, published by the Commission for Social Care Inspection. This is the fourth year running and the first time since the new Adult Services department was set up, in September 2005, that the Council has been awarded the top rating.
Highlights of the report include involvement with partners and the increased numbers of people using the direct payments system to contract care services. The commission also concluded that services to promote independence are proving effective, with good intermediate care and 50 new extra care housing tenancies. High numbers of people in Bolton are also using home care, and admissions of older people to residential and nursing care are low.
The Commission also recognised the department's work to actively encourage participation of service users and carers in the further development of council care services. This year the overall number of carers receiving breaks through the carers' grant has increased by 15%.
The Adult Services department incorporates social care elements, plus responsibility for a wider range of services. In a separate assessment earlier this year, the Audit Commission inspected the Supporting People programme and awarded three-stars, praising the high level of consultation with service users.
With the support of the Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID), ASRA Greater London Housing Association launched a specialist telephone service for its deaf and speech-impaired tenants.
The Association's staff now use Typetalk, which is a 'dial direct' national telephone relay service used by people with communication difficulties. Tenants are already using the service for general housing and maintenance queries, as well as emergency repair call outs.
A textphone, available from BT, allows access to Typetalk, which then relays tenant queries and requests direct to the Association. TextDirect allows tenants to use Typetalk by direct dial and offers a single telecommunication service that supports the needs of people with communication difficulties. It is available to users 24 hours a day and all year round.
The system operates as follows:
Responding to an enquiry, ASRA simply dials 18002, followed by the full telephone number of the person it wishes to call.
Once the textphone user answers the call, a Typetalk operator joins the line to relay the call. The hearing person speaks their part of the conversation and the operator types what is being said.
The textphone user replies either by speaking directly to the hearing person, or by typing their conversation for the operator to read back to ASRA.
Typetalk is managed by the RNID and funded by BT. Calls are charged at standard telephone rates.
There are an estimated nine million people in the UK who have hearing difficulties, and since Typetalk was introduced over 21 million calls have been made from textphone users to hearing people and vice versa.
As part of a weeklong roadshow, Places for People launched a new technology service, aimed at helping people live independently in their homes and communities. The roadshow, which has been travelling from South Shields to London, aims to raise awareness of the day-to-day issues experienced by disabled and elderly people.
Having extensively piloted the project, in the next five years the new service will extend the use of technological aids that give disabled and elderly people greater independence.
Such aids include remote control devices for doors, windows and lights through to 'tele-care' devices that help people to remain safe in their homes by alerting them to flood or fire, or alerting others when a person has had a fall.
One major project will see £250,000 invested over the next five years to automate front door access to 50 sheltered and extra-care schemes, in order to improve access for thousands of customers.
Places for People has been piloting the use of new technologies in schemes in the North East and Midlands. Its Campbell Court, an extra-care scheme for elderly people in South Tyneside, was built to accommodate technologies designed to assist the disabled and elderly. Residents can take advantage of an array of adaptations - from the simple, e.g. hand railings, to more high tech adaptations, e.g. remote control doors, windows, and lights.
A new scheme in South Shields, for people with low to medium learning disabilities, will be completed in January 2007. Dean Road will feature a range of innovative technologies, including voice and face recognition phone systems. It will also trial mobile phones with built in panic alarms, which pinpoint a person's exact location using GRPS.
