Ealing Council is actively addressing criticisms highlighted by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) concerning the accessibility and effectiveness of its adult social care services. This initiative follows a summer 2024 CQC report that assigned Ealing a 'requires improvement' rating for adult social care. The CQC report identified several shortcomings including:

  • Safeguarding: Concerns about the timeliness and effectiveness of safeguarding enquiries.
  • Data analysis and performance monitoring: Need for improved data analysis to understand trends and support strategic planning. Limited analysis of safeguarding trends and other key performance indicators.
  • Financial management: Overspending on the budget, particularly in adult social care, and issues with financial assessments causing delays and complaints.
  • Support for carers: Need for better identification and support for young carers transitioning to adult services. Mixed feedback on the support available for carers, with some experiencing long waits for assessments and limited ongoing support.
  • Service capacity: Gaps in specialist dementia provision, complex nursing care, and supported living services. Limited choice in some areas of service provision.
  • Community and voluntary sector support: Concerns about the sustainability of voluntary and community sector organizations due to funding challenges and lack of inflationary uplift.

Volunteers preparing food, possibly related to cost of living support or supporting vulnerable residents.
Volunteers preparing food, possibly related to cost of living support or supporting vulnerable residents.

The Health and Adult Social Services Scrutiny Panel met on Thursday 10 July 2025 to discuss the council's work plan to address the CQC's findings. The panel considered reports from Ealing Healthwatch, and about the health of the borough. The panel also received an update on the work plan for adult services, following reports from the CQC and Local Government Association (LGA).

While the council expressed disappointment with the 'requires improvement' rating, noting that they did not believe it reflected the quality of services, they acknowledged the CQC's findings and outlined a series of actions to improve accessibility and communication, timeliness of assessments, safeguarding, data analysis and performance monitoring, financial management, support for carers, service capacity, and community and voluntary sector support.

One of the key areas of focus is improving accessibility and communication. The CQC report highlighted difficulties in contacting the council by phone and navigating the website. To address this, the council is undertaking a front door transformation program focused on delivering the right outcome at first contact. Actions taken to date have resulted in a 300% increase in people receiving an initial outcome from contact in under 10 days, and the elimination of a backlog of cases referred by the police. Planned next steps include developing a cross-council directory with an intelligent search function and improving the digital journey for residents.

A collage of photos showing people interacting at community health and wellbeing event.
A collage of photos showing people interacting at community health and wellbeing event.

To improve the timeliness of assessments, the council is using new data and insights to drive performance and focusing on the longest waits in teams. Surge activity across first contact and occupational therapy has resulted in a 50% reduction in the longest waits, and the number of people waiting for social work assessment has been reduced from 414 to 287. Further improvements are planned, including an improved online offer to allow phone to be focused on those that need it, occupational therapy process transformation including appointments in hubs, and the development of a new workforce plan 2026 – 30 with focus on workforce development. The impact of these planned actions is expected to result in the elimination of simple equipment backlogs, improved outcomes from case file audits and a reduction in the average wait time to 12 weeks (currently 20).

Graph showing social work assessment waiting times in Ealing, June 2024 to June 2025.
Graph showing social work assessment waiting times in Ealing, June 2024 to June 2025.

In January 2025, a follow-up review by the LGA concluded that there had been outstanding progress over the past 22 months, successfully meeting each of the recommendations from the Peer Challenge . The specific recommendations from the LGA Peer Challenge are not detailed in the provided text.

The Health and Adult Social Services Scrutiny Panel will continue to monitor the progress of these improvements and make recommendations as appropriate.