Agenda item

Consideration was given to the report.  Although it was recognised that Hillingdon benchmarked well in terms of a good quality service, Members queried how service user satisfaction rates could be increased.  Ms Sandra Taylor, the Council’s Corporate Director of Adult Social Care and Health, advised that she had been disappointed with only 35% of service users being satisfied as this was at odds with the responses saying that service users’ quality of life was good.  Consideration would need to be given to why this figure had been so low and undertake local engagement with residents (national data from 2024/25 had been used). 

It was noted that the Council was starting to see good data in relation to the residential and nursing home placements that it made.  Statistically, the Council had previously been reporting its short and long term placements but other local authorities had only been reporting their long term placements (Hillingdon had now corrected this to only report long term placements).  Adult Social Care Outcomes Framework (ASCOF) and Short and Long Term Services (SALT) data source indicators had also changed recently and needed to be investigated further as some of the data seemed weird.  However, dashboards were now available to enable data comparison. 

Ms Taylor noted that the cost per head per 100k population across all primary support groups provided very good value for money and Hillingdon had the fourth lowest net spend in London.  The data could be broken down into groups to enable officers to identify where the costs for specifics was higher than the London average. 

It was queried whether the presence of Heathrow Airport in the Borough had impacted on the Council’s performance.  Ms Taylor advised that the low cost of services provided by the Council had been as a result of how the local authority had managed its contracts and how it had worked collaboratively.  The airport had had had less of an impact on adult services and more of an impact on children and young people’s services (although the repatriation of adults with significant health needs could be challenging).  Heathrow Airport offered opportunities for employment and leisure. 

Members congratulated Adult Social Care on achieving ‘Good’ in its CQC inspection and queried how frequently these inspections would be undertaken.  Ms Taylor advised that the inspection had been undertaken in July 2024 using the new framework and that almost all local authorities had now been inspected.  Directors of Adult Social Care worked together to determine why some local authorities had performed well in the CQC inspection and help others to improve.  It was anticipated that the CQC’s next inspection in Hillingdon would take place at the end of this year / beginning of next and that it would be targeted at issues that the CQC felt were weaker (the outcome would not change the overall rating already achieved).

It was suggested that the report include information about what actions and initiatives had worked and what had been learnt / not learnt from this work.  For example, it would be useful to know what action was being taken to address high levels of obesity in places like Yiewsley and Hayes, the impact of this action and how it compared to the London average. 

Members queried how the overspend had been factored into the service area’s performance.  Ms Taylor advised that there had been a lag at the end of 2025/26 which had caused pressure and that the overspend had been factored into the pressures.  She noted that there had been more detailed work undertaken for this year to put the growth in and ensure that there was an accurate figure for how much the services cost to run including the overspend.  Consideration was also being given to how licensing and advertising impacted on the local population and how this could be reduced by working with public health to take actions such as asking retailers to advertise healthier options. 

Ms Taylor noted that the Council needed to celebrate its successes and that this would start with this report but would change all of the time.  A set of indicators would be followed through the year and a report provided to the Committee with the narrative.

RESOLVED:  That the six-month performance report for 2025/26 be noted.