Tower Hamlets Council is preparing for an upcoming inspection of its adult social care services by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the independent regulator of health and social care in England. The CQC inspection will assess how the council works with people, provides support, ensures safety, and demonstrates leadership.
The Health & Adults Scrutiny Sub-Committee met on Tuesday 29 July 2025 to discuss preparations for the inspection. The agenda for the meeting can be found in the Agenda frontsheet.
Julie Davidson, Interim Director of Adult Social Care, provided an update on the inspection process, highlighting the council's commitment to prioritising people by supporting them to meet their goals, be connected to others and be as independent as possible. The council also focuses on identifying and building on personal strengths, strengths within families and friends, and strengths within the community. Furthermore, the council aims to empower and enable people to meet their own outcomes and aspirations, using a compassionate, culturally attuned, inclusive, anti-oppressive and trauma-aware approach to support. The council quality assures its practice in various ways and at different levels to embrace excellent practice and drive improvement where necessary.
Key milestones include:
- Submission of an information return (completed on 2 May 2025), including a self-assessment and supporting documents.
- An on-site visit, for which the council will receive 6-8 weeks' notice.
- A senior leadership presentation to the CQC, approximately one month before the on-site visit.
- A data and performance focus group with the CQC, about one week prior to the visit.
- Report publication, expected up to three months after the on-site visit.
Key priorities for inspection preparation include:
- Preparing cases for submission to the CQC.
- Preparing for the senior leadership presentation.
- Delivering the improvement plan.
- Identifying and supporting people to speak with the CQC.
- Communicating and engaging with staff and stakeholders, including sharing key messages from the self-assessment.
The council's self-assessment also highlights areas identified for focus. These include managing demand, reducing waiting times for assessments and reviews, developing the direct payments service, improving reablement outcomes, and ensuring consistency in co-production practices. The council is actively working to address these areas.
Specifically, the council is working hard to reduce the amount of time that people are waiting for both assessment and review. To improve the direct payments service model, the council is continuing to develop the direct payment service to ensure it is a really important and easy to access service of first support. The council is also working with health colleagues to ensure that they're optimizing that opportunity for people again to be reabled to stay as healthy as they can and to stay as members of their community.
Other areas identified for focus include enhancing market oversight work to be less reactive and more strategic in market shaping, improving timescales in line with Pan London recommendations for safeguarding, continuous learning on MCA and community DOLS, continuing to strengthen the Safeguarding Adults Board, developing the future strategy, and improving use of data and intelligence to enhance a performance culture that drives innovation.
The Public reports pack contains the reports pack that was provided to the attendees for the meeting.
