Social care

A national care service has the potential to make a huge difference for people needing care in Cornwall.

Today, the Care Quality Commission reported on Cornwall's adult social care, placing it in the bottom eight out of 148 local authorities. The care provided is 'adequate' - no authorities are providing 'poor' care - and this rating has not changed since last year's report.

Behind every official report like this there are people receiving less good care than each of us would wish for our loved ones. One of the issues highlighted is the lack of integration between Cornwall's NHS and social care services. There are some similarities here with the concerns about child protection, in that it relates to improving communication and response to care needs.

The Council committee responsible for scrutinising these services (the local NHS and adult social care) is the Committee whose chairman recently called an 'emergency' meeting to discuss the issue of upper GI services which has already been under discussion for over a year partly because the Council did not refer it for consultation when it was first raised.

The Council needs to grasp the nettle here and set in train improvements in Cornwall's adult social care, as they are already doing through the Government led improvement Board for children's services.

Their 4.5 per cent increase in funding for next year needs applied to our major services. Now is not the time to be looking to make cuts given the savings achieved as a result of the switch to a unitary authority.