DISABILITIES

Sharing the learning: user-led organisations action and learning sites 2008-2010 (17th March 2010)
This guide describes the background to establishing the user-led organisations action and learning sites, and provides a snapshot of the good practice resources resulting from this project.
Guide

Disabled children's services national indicator 2009-10: Primary Care Trusts reports (March 2010)
A collection of disabled children's services national indicator reports setting out findings for each primary care trust (PCT) area for which there was sufficient response from parents to the 2009-2010 survey to measure parental satisfaction of services for disabled children.

Each report provides indicator and sub-indicator scores, as well as analysis of parents' comments relating to services in each of the following areas: health, education, and care and family support.

There are also comparison Excel spreadsheets for PCTs which allow for easy comparisons between local areas.
Reports

CARE QUALITY COMMISSION

Annual Reports and Accounts 2008-09 (20th July 2009)
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) was formed following the merger of three previous health and social care commissions:

• The Commission for Social Care Inspection
• The Healthcare Commission
• The Mental Health Act Commission

These reports show the work of the organisations to improve health and social care over their final year in operation. Also published is the CQC six month report and accounts.
Reports

HEALTHCARE COMMISSION

Listening,learning, working together? A national study of how well healthcare organisations engage local people in planning and improving their services (26th March 2009)
According to this report from the Healthcare Commission, NHS trusts are increasing their efforts to listen to patients and the public, but now must go the next step to ensure these views are used to bring about change and improvement.
Report
Briefing
Practice Briefing
Easy Read Version

Tackling the Challenge. Promoting race equality in the NHS in England (30th March 2009)
This report looks at the extent to which the NHS in England is meeting the legal basic building blocks in promoting race equality.
Report

Adult specialist community mental health services. Report of the follow-up to the 2005/06 review (30th March 2009)
This is the report of the Healthcare Commission's follow-up review. The findings show that although progress made by many of the trusts is encouraging, they only show modest improvements in a number os aspects of the services. The recommendations are that all mental health providers look at their performance in this follow-up review and to work on the areas where either performance has deteriorated or shows the need for greater improvement.
Review

Equality in later life. A national study of older people's mental health services (31st March 2009)
This study focused on four themes:

• Age discrimination
• Quality of inpatient care
• How comprehensive are services?
• Working with other organisations

Although this study shows evidence of some good practice, it also shows that mental health services for the over 65's are in need of urgent attention.
Study

Care Quality Commission (1st April 2009)
This is the website of the new independent regulator of health and social care in England. The Care Quality Commission replaced:

• The Healthcare Commission
• Commission for Social Care Inspection
• Mental Health Act Commission

Website

SOCIAL CARE

CSCI 2004-2009: Making social care better for people (11th March 2009)
This report highlights the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) key achievements and describes some of the methods they have developed, such as:

• involving people who use services in all aspects of their work
• making regulatory information publicly available.

Report

Funding adult social care in England (20th March 2009)
The current system for funding adult social care in England has been criticised as unfair, complex and financially unsustainable. There are significant local variations in who is eligible for what kinds of support and a host of complicated local and national rules that apply to the funding of different elements of social care services.

In autumn 2007, the government announced its intention to reform the current system, and a Green Paper containing options for a new system for funding adult social care and support will be published in 2009. Teresa Poole sets out how adult social care is currently funded, outlines some of the main criticisms of the current arrangements and describes the types of changes the government might consider for its reform.
Briefing

DISABILITIES

Supporting disabled parents: a family or a fragmented approach? (24th February 2009)
This report, from Commission for Social Care Inspection, finds that many councils do not fully support disabled parents and their children. Disabled parents are a diverse group of people and include parents with:

• physical and/or sensory impairments
• learning disabilities
• mental health needs
• drug and alcohol related problems
• long term medical conditions

Report
Summary

SOCIAL CARE

Putting people first: Equality and Diversity Matters 3. Achieving disability equality in social care services (10th February 2009)
This bulletin is the third in a series of three designed to help service providers meet the personalisation agenda in social care by addressing equality and diversity matters. This bulletin focuses on achieving disability equality in social care services. Whilst this bulletin is primarily written to assist social care providers, it may also be of interest to commissioners of adult care services and people using services.
Bulletin