Dr Sue Ross, our Interim Director of Adults’ and Children’s Services, has presented a report to Full Council, highlighting the positive findings of the recent Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection of the Council’s Adult Social Care service, which resulted in a ‘Good’ rating. Her report also drew focus to the recommendations for improvements which were contained in the CQC inspection report. You can read the Full Council report in full on our committee webpages.
At the meeting of Full Council on 14 October 2025, Members heard that our Adult Social Care service’s score of 70 points compared favourably to the 65.6 point average score received by the 70 published inspection results for local authorities at the time of writing, placing the Council’s services in the top 30% of all authorities inspected in this round, at that point.
As well as summarising the strengths identified by CQC in her report, the Interim Director of Adults’ and Children’s Services urged Members to fully consider the areas identified as requiring development in order to be rated ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding,’ which call for increased systemic understanding of the specific context the Council is working in and a clear ‘golden thread’ from Public Health strategy to health and social care delivery on the islands. By building on the improvements noted in these areas over the last 2 years, the Council and its partners can seek to be in an even better position to deliver on the health and social care needs of the community in the future.
Dr Sue Ross, Interim Director of Adults and Children’s Services said: “Discovering how well our Adult Social Care service inspection outcome compares on a national scale, despite some real challenges posed by our small size and geographical remoteness, has been extremely heartening. I am so proud of our Adult Social Care workforce and health and social care colleagues who continue to do everything within their power to deliver the high-quality services which are so valued by the community we serve. We now have a real opportunity to work on the few remaining areas which require improvement to be rated ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding,’ and I think the CQC report will bring real focus to this effort, providing both the Council and its partners across the health and social care system with a useful tool to drive and implement these improvements.”
Cllr Avril Mumford, Lead Member for Adults and Public Health and Chairman of Scrutiny Committee said: “I welcome the report from our Interim Director of Adults’ and Children’s Services which shines a light on how impressive the outcome of the CQC inspection is for our small, but complex authority. The level of commitment and care shown by staff in these services is humbling and I am delighted this has been recognised not only by CQC inspectors, but also by service users and their families. I look forward to further updates from the service as it takes action to address the CQC recommendations in order to further benefit our whole community.”