Leader’s praise for adult social care work

Shropshire Council deserves praise for the way it is handling adult social care and children’s services, its leader has claimed.

The authority received an update on its performance this week, with improvements in adult social care praised.

And Councillor Peter Nutting said he was pleased with work – especially given budget pressures.

He said: “I think we deserve a bit of praise for the way the council as a whole has improved its adult social care and children’s services under severe budget pressure.

“For a rural council there are a lot of issues to tackle yet we are doing that and I want to say well done to the cabinet holder and to all the staff who work in the service.

“It’s very easy to criticise but it’s good to say well done when things work out well as well.

“There is a lot of pressure financially so it is good to see this.”

Tom Dodds, intelligence and insight manager, said: “Performance for minimising the Delayed Transfer of Care of Shropshire residents from hospital continues to perform well across both adult social care and the NHS. 

“The number of patient delayed days for quarter one was 716, of which 620 were attributed to the NHS, 54 to social care and 42 were jointly attributed. 

“This is an overall improvement on the 1,153 days in the same period in 2018, 2,425 days in 2017 and 2,656 days in 2016.”

He added: “Adult Social Care has managed to sustain improvement levels in the timely transfer of patients from hospital to appropriate care settings.

“The demand on children’s social care services is increasing across all service areas. 

“This is placing additional pressure on services and budgets. 

“Budget pressures on local government is a significant challenge for all local authorities. 

“Outturn figures for quarter one indicate a potential overspend of £7.955m on a gross budget of £568.489m.”   

He added that the council is also performing well in other departments,

He said: “Recycling rates for household waste in Shropshire are within the top quartile of performers amongst English authorities.

“Theatre Severn continues to attract more visitors. 32 per cent of visitors are from out of county, which helps supports the visitor economy of Shropshire.”

Councillor Lee Chapman added: “The fact that so many are coming from outside the county is fantastic as it shows the theatre is really drawing people into Shrewsbury and the county as a whole.”