We asked, You said, We did

We heard from our Adult Social Care survey, that most people when asked about how to seek views on improving and developing services was a preference for ‘surveying’ people’s experience on a regular basis

We have already established a ‘real time experience survey’ to gain immediate feedback at the time of services and support being accessed but have now developed 2 new surveys. A Safeguarding experience survey, capturing people’s experience of Section 42 safeguarding enquiries or investigations into abuse and a Direct Payments experience survey, seeking to find out more about what it’s like receiving a Direct Payment in Coventry, what’s working well. things people may like to see changed. Find out more about the survey.

Under Care Act 2014, the local authority must keep the ‘care and support plan’ under periodic review. A review of an ongoing stable care and support plan should take place no less than 12 months after the initial review, undertaken when support started and no less than every 12 month after that. The review is a positive opportunity to take stock and consider if the plan is helping the person to meet their needs. We wanted to ensure we were undertaking reviews in a timely manner.

During 2024/25 we focussed resources on reviews and reached a performance of 66.4% for completion of annual reviews. This is marked increase on the previous three years, improving our review performance and assurance that we are meeting the care and support needs of people in Coventry in a timely and appropriate manner. In addition, 88% of people had a review/assessment within the last 18 months

We heard that people can sometimes find it difficult to understand Direct Payments and how they can support people

We have updated our public information leaflets and this information is also available in Punjabi, Urdu, Arabic and Gujarati

We have produced promotional videos explaining how Direct Payments can give people choice and control

We are asking that staff, work with the person for longer until they understand how the payments work

We have produced a new survey to keep asking people how we can improve our approach to Direct Payments.

We heard from people about the difficulties they experience with caring in the city. People told us it was hard to live a life alongside caring and that they weren’t always sure where they needed to go for support or what was available to help.

We developed a two-year action plan to respond to the feedback we received. The Carers Action Plan can be viewed here. We have established a steering group to oversee the actions within the plan. Work is underway to:

Improve the experience of having a Carers Assessment

Using additional funding to develop projects that support people with caring responsibilities which should be in place from October 2024

Working with partner organisations to develop support across agencies.

We have developed a leaflet about Carers Direct Payments to provide clarity about how they can be used and how people can access one.

You have told us from survey responses that people find it hard to find information about Adult Social Care

We produced an Adult Social Care Offer which explains what you can expect from Coventry City Council’s Adult Social Care and Support Services

We continue to review, update and produce a range of public information leaflets

We started to undertake community engagement events which will be held over the course of the year

We have reviewed and updated our Adult Social Care web pages so they are easier to navigate and find information

We have been looking at the demographic profile of those who access social care (the characteristics of people such as age, gender and ethnicity) and wanted to ensure our public information is accessible.