Caring services seeing more stars!

Date published: 02/12/2005

Services that provide care for thousands of vulnerable people across Rochdale borough are getting better.

Adult Care and Child Care have wide responsibilities for supporting families, protecting children at risk of harm, helping older people to live independently, and supporting people with disabilities.

In the newly published Social Services Inspectorate 'Star Ratings', Rochdale Council's Adult Care and Child Care Services have been awarded 'two stars', just one short of the maximum. Both have a promising capacity to improve
further.

Improvement has been made across both services, and inspectors now note that Adult Care is judged to be serving 'most people well'. Child Care has maintained its judgement of 'promising capacity to improve', having been judged uncertain in 2003.

Lead Member for Health & Social Care, Coun. Jean Hornby welcomed the improved assessment and said, "These services really matter to the people that use them. I'm very pleased that inspectors have seen the improvement, and judged that this trend is likely to continue."

"My congratulations to all the staff, this improved rating is due in no small measure to their hard work and edication."

The Social Services star ratings is a part of the Joint Annual Review process, looking at children's services across the borough. The results of this inspection, which also takes in education provision, is expected to be published later this month.

The ratings aim to improve public information about how services are performing, and to promote improvement. Star ratings include evidence from inspections and reviews, monitoring and performance indicators, to provide an overall picture of performance over time.