UPDATE: 10 January 2011

The publication of this review, which had been planned for mid-December 2010, has been postponed. The results of the review and our national findings will now be published alongside CQC’s annual report on the state of healthcare and adult social care. We do not yet have a confirmed date for this publication, but we do not expect it to be earlier than March 2011.

We appreciate that colleagues working in councils will be keen to press on with work to improve their services and that the results of this review may help to inform this work. Ahead of publication, we will provide to councils their results as amended following the recent ratification exercise. These results will be sent to named local leads during January 2011. We are also exploring the possibility of providing detailed call-level data to councils and will provide further advice on the timing of this as soon as possible.

What is the review about?

The review looks at the quality of councils’ response to people seeking help, support or advice in relation to a social care need.

Which organisations and services will we be looking at?

The review covers all councils with adult social services responsibilities. Specifically, we are looking at the quality of service provided to people seeking help or information from or about social services.

Why is the review taking place?

The Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) identified the need for additional focus on the experience of people making initial contact with social services departments. CSCI highlighted this issue in both The State of Social Care in England 2006-07, and in its 2008 review of eligibility criteria for social care Cutting the Cake Fairly (a review informed by an online survey of people using services and their carers). CSCI also commissioned a ‘mystery-shopping’ exercise in 2007, (published as Hello, How Can I Help?), which found that the information provided by councils to older people seeking help was highly variable.

Based on these findings, CQC included ‘social services response to people’s first contact with them’ as a potential topic in its consultation on the 2009/10 programme of special reviews and studies. The topic received good support in the consultation, and so was included in the final 2009/10 programme.

What is the scope of the review?

This review focuses on what happens when people first approach their local social services with a request for help or information. We are looking at:

• initial contacts from or on behalf of people aged 18 and older
• the information, advice and support provided at or following first contact
• processes for follow-up and monitoring of people not given a full assessment, or not found to meet the council’s eligibility criteria and therefore ‘sign-posted’ to other services and providers
• a primary focus on telephone contacts made by or on behalf or a person who may benefit from services or carer. Referrals from other sources, and other contact routes, will be a secondary focus

The review is not looking at:

• contacts with people already in receipt of council-funded community social care services, i.e. contacts relating to reviews of existing care packages
• decisions made by councils on the application of eligibility criteria in individual cases (i.e. retrospective review of individual cases)
• contacts relating to safeguarding issues.
• complaints
• the information available to people prior to their first contact

How is 'first contact' defined in the review?

The definition of ‘first contact’ in this review is:

The first point of contact at which, following an initial exploration of their needs, a decision is made on whether to refer a person on for further assessment, commission services in response to these needs or ‘sign-post’ the person making contact to information or other services.

‘First contact’ in this sense may not always be the first conversation with someone working for the council, but it will be the first point at which a person seeking help has the opportunity to discuss their needs, and the first point at which decisions are made about how or whether these needs should be further assessed or met.

What are the key dates for the review?

We collected data for the review between December 2009 and August 2010. There were three stages to the data collection:

1) Mapping

An initial online data collection completed by councils, which helped to map the routes by which people can make contact with their council, the frequency with which they are used and the nature of the interaction involved. The data provided by councils at this stage was used to inform subsequent work on the review, but will not directly inform the scored assessment. This collection began on 21 December 2009 and closed at 5pm on Thursday 4 February 2010.

2) Mystery shopping

Following pilot calls in February 2010, a 'mystery shopping' exercise ran from March to August 2010, in which councils’ ‘live’ responses to people’s first contact were tested. Each council was contacted a number of times during this period, with their responses to the mystery shoppers recorded, collated and scored for inclusion in the review assessment. Councils should be aware that audio recordings of telephone contacts were made as part of this process for training and quality assurance purposes.

The scenarios and mystery shopping scripts used in this exercise were developed with the input of people who use services, carers, people working in local social services and other experts.

Following feedback from two councils during the final weeks of the exercise we introduced an additional step to ensure that the mystery shopping exercise did not generate additional work at a local level and did not compromise the handling of genuine calls. All calls made as part of this exercise during July and August 2010 concluded with an explanation that the call was made as part of the mystery shopping exercise. As advised in previous communications and on our webpage, the exercise concluded at the end of August 2010. No mystery shopping calls have been made on our behalf in relation to this review since the end of August 2010.

3) Survey of social services

A second online data collection completed by councils examined in more detail the arrangements they have in place to ensure that their contact routes are accessible and supportive, and looked at the arrangements in place for follow-up and monitoring of people ‘sign-posted’ to other services. The online form for this collection went live on 22 July and closed 5pm 20 August 2010.

The set of questions, guidance and FAQs issued to local authorities for this collection may be viewed by clicking the link below.                                 

First Contact data collection 2 - Questions, Guidance, FAQs V1 (XLS, 1.13MB, opens in new window)

The deadline for submissions was 5pm Friday 20 August 2010.

How will councils be assessed?

The outline framework for our assessment, setting out the key questions to be considered by the review and the indicators used to address each question, is available from the link below:

20101112 Ratification FC assessment framework (XLS, 35.5 KB, opens in new window)

All councils with adult social services responsibilities were required to take part in the review and will receive a scored assessment for the services they provide. This scored assessment stands alone and is not linked to councils' annual performance assessment. This scored assessment will be calculated in line with our published policy for scoring special reviews. This policy is also available from the link on the left.

The scored assessment will be based on the information collected through the mystery shopping exercise and the second online data collection. The detailed indicator construction and scoring proposals are available from the following links:

20101112 Ratification Indicator scoring details v1R (PDF, 94KB, opens in new window)

The methodology used to 'z-score' indicators is available from the following link:

20101112 Ratification Z-scoring paper updated (PDF, 74.4KB, opens in new window)

As part of our ratification exercise, councils were provided with their provisional scores alongside the data used to calculation these scores. Details of the ratification and extenuating circumstances policies and processes can be found by following the link to the left of this webpage.

Ratification ran from Tuesday 16th November to 5pm Tuesday 7th December.

When will the results and national report be published?

The publication of this review, planned for mid-December 2010, has now been postponed. The results of the review and our national findings will now be published alongside CQC’s annual report on the state of healthcare and adult social care. We do not yet have a confirmed date for this publication, but we do not expect it to be earlier than March 2011.

http://www.cqc.org.uk/reviewsandstudies/currentprogramme/socialservicesr...