RBWM adult social care has 'a lot of work to do' to address loneliness, meeting hears

The Royal Borough’s adult and social care services have made ‘good progress’ after a requires improvement rating from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) – but work still needs to be done to address loneliness in the borough, a meeting heard.

The CQC assessed how effectively the local authority was meeting its responsibilities and released a report in November 2024.

At the time, nine areas were assessed, and five of these were rated as ‘requiring improvement’.

These were: safeguarding, governance management and sustainability, care provision integration and continuity, equality and experience in outcomes, partnership and communities.

At an adults, children and health overview and scrutiny panel meeting on Thursday (January 29), councillors heard that it ‘feels like we’re making good progress’ since the inspection was completed.

An improvement report said targeted actions on loneliness and ageing well are ‘underway’.

But, in an adult social care survey, loneliness was rated ‘red’ in a traffic light rating system for Windsor and Maidenhead, indicating it is still a cause for concern.

Cllr Clive Baskerville (Lib Dem, Pinkneys Green) asked if anything is being done to address loneliness locally.

Jesal Dhokia, the assistant director of systems, performance and communities, said: “Although the isolation, loneliness [indicator] is very much a national trend, what we do understand is that we have a lot of work to do based on our ageing population.

“We are doing a lot of work behind the background to think about this [loneliness] indicator and ensuring our social care teams are equipped with resources at hand when they are going [to visit] the residents, when they’re doing the visits at home as well.”

Other work to address this includes collaborating with libraries, the voluntary sector and community groups to help people stay connected, the report said.

Cllr Jodie Grove (Ind, Datchet, Horton and Wraysbury) added: “We make lots of reference through the report of elderly people, people with mental ill health or learning disabilities. I didn’t pick up anything about adults with physical disabilities.”

She asked if there was a strategy in place to support those individuals when it comes to addressing their loneliness and improving social interactions and support.

Kate Concannon, the council’s deputy director of adult social care operations, said this is something she will take away and raise with the community teams to see what more can be done for adults with physical disabilities.

Some of the key areas that will be the focus for 2026/27 include completing a supported accommodation strategy and strengthening making safeguarding more personal.

Ms Concannon added: “We’ve got that robust strategic oversight of safeguarding.”

To improve governance and management, she said adult and social care services now have a permanent management team, with an increased number of permanent social workers.

Kevin McDaniel, the council’s executive director of adults, health and communities, said: “That [CQC inspection] was [done] at a time when we were still using the Paris system, which had no data analytics.

“So, we were unable to answer many of the questions [the CQC] were asking about ‘how have things changed over time’, ‘what was your data telling you’.

Since then, the Royal Borough has implemented MOSAIC, a case management system that also provides a more accurate record of adult social care financial commitments, the meeting heard.

Mr McDaniel added that since the inspection, he has been meeting with an improvement adviser regularly who has been scrutinising the adult and social care action plan.