The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated Isle of Wight Council as ‘requires improvement’ in its delivery of adult social care services following a new-style assessment under the Care Act 2014.
The inspection examined how the local authority works with communities and partner organisations to meet its responsibilities for adults requiring care and support, including older people, disabled adults and unpaid carers.
At present there are a total of 4,130 adults within the service, 2,232 of those are adults with a long-term service. A total of £87,157,256 was spent on adult social care during 2024/25.
CQC assessed the council across 9 areas spanning 4 themes, awarding scores out of 4. Isle of Wight Council received an overall ‘requires improvement’ rating, with concerns identified around waiting times, equality of access and support for unpaid carers.
The councils rating, 62%, falls one percentage point short of being graded ‘good’.
The authority scored 2 out of 4 in several areas, including assessing people’s needs, supporting healthier lives, care provision, and governance and sustainability.
Areas including safeguarding, partnerships and learning and innovation scored more positively,.
However, inspectors identified a number of shortcomings within the service.
The report found some residents were reaching crisis point before receiving support, while delays in finalising care plans left others uncertain about how their needs would be met.
In one case highlighted by inspectors, an unpaid carer waited 6 weeks for a decision regarding support for a relative.
The CQC also criticised hospital discharge arrangements, saying a “risk-averse approach” had resulted in too many people being placed into residential care when they may have been able to return home with suitable support.
Inspectors also found the council was not consistently monitoring whether people from LGBTQ+ communities or different ethnic backgrounds were receiving equitable access to services.
Occupational therapy services were also criticised, with long waiting times continuing after the service was brought back in-house. Inspectors said the council had failed to reduce backlogs relating to equipment and home adaptations.
The report additionally noted concerns over support for unpaid carers, with some reassessments not carried out for up to 4 years.
Despite the criticism, the CQC praised the council’s senior leadership team, describing them as experienced, compassionate and accessible.
Inspectors also highlighted examples of positive support for carers, with around 20% of eligible people able to access emergency or short-notice respite breaks – above the England average of 12%.
Speaking to media yesterday, Strategic Director of Adult Social Care & Housing Laura Gaudion, confirmed that some issues addressed in the report are being tackled already with others set to be discussed at greater lengths with key stakeholders.
In response to the report, Ms Gaudion said:
“We recognise there are areas where we need to improve, and we are already taking steps to address these.
“The report gives us a clear picture of where we are doing well, as well as where we need to go further, and it is encouraging that we are very close to a ‘good’ rating.
“We are committed to building on the progress already made and making sure people on the island receive the care and support they need.”
we as a family have had first hand experience of the appalling service from social care and would be more than happy to share this!
Having had recent experience with social care this is very accurate! Never able to contact dad’s social worker, promised calls back which never came, promised they would attend his meetings and never turned up and all in all very poor support. I had to source my own placement for dad( luckily I found a lovely one!) as had no support and when I raised significant concerns about the standard of the outside care agency put in by social care to support his care needs I was told not to rock the boat as if they withdrew he’d be put back in hospital! There appears to be a lack of care and support for individuals and none for the families, especially those like dad with dementia.
if there werent so many freeloaders then there would be more help available.
The amount spent is unacceptably high
Unbelievable statement from Ms Gaudion:
“it is encouraging that we are very close to a ‘good’ rating”
It is not good enough to be even a good rating – the goal should be to aim to be much better than that as a minimum..
Speaking from the dreadful experience of dealing with the IW Council and Adult Social Care for over four years and the family being let down when help was desperately needed the lack of help and care greatly affects people’s lives.
Some mind boggling sums of money here which deserve researching.
£87.15 million spent. Number of users 4130. £21,103 per annum per person.
It is reasonable to assume, based on true stories of elderly people whose property has been “seized to sell” to pay towards their care, that the percentage would be at least 10% and probably quite a lot more.
10% of the users therefore being a very fair reflection of those who DID own a property, and the average value of those properties was £250,000, would produce £103.25 million.
Indeed two of my near neighbours had their houses sold for £310,000 and £350,000 respectively within the last 3 years.
Is that a wolf I can hear crying?
Or is this yet another episode of sleight of hand similar to the Alison Geddes Healthwatch story and the Liebore National Health Modernisation (Screw You) Bill, which will disallow any criticism of the NHS sacred cow.
“Close to a good rating” – of course iow council would be happy with that. Ask some people who have recieved ‘care’ or ‘support’ as carers from adult social services, they’re a disgrace here, they break their own rules, the wider laws, & are careless.
GDPR breaches within weeks of handling a patient – giving their new contact details to their abuser who proceeds to contact them, bringing ‘forms’ to patients to fill out which turn out to be invalid screenshots of a website & not useable forms..the children’s services not much better, lying to a SEN child with trust issues who then refuses to cooperate due to social worker’s lies..
Adult social work assistants (illegally) claiming to be fully licensed social workers & then intercepting phone calls raising the issue about it – it’s run much like other areas of our council – all about who you know – not if you give a damn. They can leave carers without any support during severe crisis for months, treat disabled patients poorly & then refuse to take complaints about it because they ensure they are the one picking up the phone when the complaint comes in! Then weeks later someone else at iow social care answers the phone & has heard nothing about the formally lodged complaint, there is nothing on record. Dodgy system run by dodgy people & even the suggestion they’re empathetic is laughable. Empathetic but couldn’t even get a ‘good’ rating. Sure!
Karyn Crouch and Connie Vincent from adult social no care team almost drove my step sister to suicide with their lies and false reports about her which when she complained about them was threatened by them
We could write a book about the dreadful Adult Social care on the island.
No contact for months when in a family crisis situation.
At one meeting the Social Worker put their elbow on the table, their head in their hand and fell asleep.
Any Adult Social Care contact we have witnessed has been diabolically awful.
Obviously, there is a shortage of good people working in care, but the pay is low and therefore, hard to fill vacancies.
A lot more Government money needs to be thrown at it – especially on the island where there is a huge elderly population in a small area.
Must remember that there are good people doing their best though.
Other adult care providers are available on the Island