THURROCK health boss, Cllr Barbara Rice, praised the borough’s Adult Social Care teams for going “the extra mile”.
She was responding to questions about complaints at Wednesday (23 March) evening’s meeting of the council.
She said: “Seventeen complaints have been received over the past year,” and added: “We should first of all look at the number of complaints in relation to the number of hours of care provided.
“Each week we have 65 providers that we could potentially receive complaints.
There are 49 homes and supported living schemes for adults of working age, 13 older people’s homes and – up until a few months ago – five externally commissioned home care providers.”
Cllr Rice said that two of the providers no longer supplied care and “this is when the majority of the 17 complaints were received”.
17 is equal to less that 1% of the number of hours of care we provide.
She explained: “One provider gave back the contract as, financially, they could not function, and the other was providing a poor service and we brought this back in house.”
“I would like to sincerely thank our in-house social care team who have gone the extra mile in ensuring our vulnerable residents receive a good service, even through a very challenging time of transition.”
Doing the maths, Cllr Rice shared that Thurrock Council provides around 5000 hours of care to Thurrock people each week totalling 260 thousand hours per year with 17 complaints.
“This is where I would like to say again, well done to our teams who, frankly, worked over and above what they are contracted to do.”
Speaking after the meeting Cllr Rice said: “Although we are one of the best performing authorities in the eastern region for adult social care one complaint is too many complaints.
“I have been and will continue to be following up with each person who has complained to ensure we are providing the best possible service with the resources we have available to us.”
