Adult Social Care Survey 2022

Every year the government asks councils to carry out a national survey of people receiving long term adult social care that is funded by the council. The survey due in 2021 was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, so the survey in 2022 was the first since 2020. It took place between January and March 2022. 

On this webpage you can find the results for Cambridgeshire County Council.

You can view the national results published by NHS Digital in Autumn 2022.

Background

The questionnaire template has set questions and response options which we cannot change.

However local questions can be added. In 2022 we added one question as part of our work with the Adult Social Care Partnership Boards. This was about access to information and advice and digital inclusion. It asked how people usually found out about support, services or welfare benefits. We also included free text boxes for people to tell us what we do well and what we could do better.

Cambridgeshire County Council sent out 1454 Surveys and received back 440 responses. This is a response rate of 30.3%. In 2020 the response rate was 33.7%. 

Who was surveyed?

The government tells us who to survey. This is so that it is representative of people receiving council-funded care and support.

In 2022 we surveyed:

• 108 people receiving nursing care
• 274 people receiving residential care
• 1072 people receiving care in their own home or community
• 425 people had learning disability as their primary reason for needing support
• 131 people had mental health as their primary reason for needing support
• 716 people needed personal care support
• 43 people needed access or mobility support only

41% were male and 59% were female. 61% were aged 65 or over and 39% were aged 18-64. 95% were white, with the next largest group being Asian/Asian British (1.8%).

Adult Social Care Outcomes Framework (ASCOF)

The Adult Social Care Survey feeds a number of national indicators within the Adult Social Care Outcomes Framework (ASCOF). These are national performance indicators for Adult Social Care.

The results show that most of the ASCOF indicators have worsened since the last survey. There was one exception:

• The proportion of people who use services who felt safe increased from 71.5% to 72.7%.

Indicators about health of the respondents

The survey contains 7 questions which provide a picture of the respondent’s overall health and factors which may impact that. Responses to these questions were more positive than 2020 in the five areas below:

• How is your health in general where 45.7% of respondents felt their health was good or very good. This was better than 43.2% in 2020 and better than England overall (43.5%).
• Anxiety or depression, where 53.6% stated that they were not anxious or depressed better than the 50.8% in 2020 and better than in England overall (48.4%).
• In respect of being able to get out and about, 30.1% stated they were able to get to all the places in the local area that they wanted. This was better than 29.4% in 2020 and better than in England overall (29.6%).
• A clean and comfortable home, where 64.2% responded that their home was as clean and comfortable as they want. This was better than 62.6% in 2020 but not as good as England overall (65.5%).
• Keeping clean and presentable, where 57% of respondents felt clean and able to present themselves in the way that they like. This was better than 55.4% in 2020 and better than England overall (56.6%).

The responses around health and health related factors worsened in the following two areas:

• Pain or discomfort, where only 38.5% stated that they felt no pain or discomfort compared to 39.4% in 2020. However, this is better than the 37% responding this way in England overall.
• Food and drink, where 65.5% stated that they get all the food and drink they like when they want, compared to 66.8% in 2020. However, this is better than the 63.5% responding this way in England overall.

Overall, for the questions relating to health Cambridgeshire respondents answered more positively than the national picture on 6 out of 7 of the questions.

What people needed support to do

The survey asks 9 questions around the respondent’s support needs and what they could do for themselves. Respondents’ ability to do things for themselves worsened compared to 2020 in three areas:

• Getting around indoors (excepting steps) by yourself, where 52.1% answered positively. This was slightly lower than 2020 (52.3%) and lower than England overall (53%).
• Managing to use the toilet by yourself, where 55.6% answered positively. This was lower than 2020 (57.5%) and lower than England overall (59.2%).
• How well your house is designed to meet your needs, where 86.4% answered positively, lower than 2020 (87.2%) but higher than in England overall (84.5%)

In the other 6 areas relating to the respondent’s level and type of care need, there was an increase in positive responses since 2020:

• Managing to get in and out of bed (or chair) by yourself, where 53.3% answered positively. This was slightly higher than 2020 (53.0%) but lower than England overall (55.9%).
• Managing to wash your face and hands by yourself, where 68.7% answered positively. This was higher than 2020 (66.9%) but lower than England overall (70.2%).
• Managing to get dressed or undressed by yourself, where 41.9% answered positively. This was slightly higher than 2020 (37.4%) but lower than England overall (42.9%).
• Managing to wash all over by yourself, using either a bath or a shower, where 29.6% answered positively. This was higher than 2020 (28.4%) but lower than England overall (32.4%).
• Dealing with finances and paperwork (for example paying bills, writing letters) by yourself, where 22.2% answered positively. This was higher than 2020 (17.3%) and higher than England overall (19.6%).
• Usually managing to feed yourself, where 77.8% answered positively. This was higher than 2020 (75.3%) and higher than England overall (76.6%).

Overall, for the questions around what people could do for themselves respondents were less able to do tasks for themselves than respondents across England in 6 of the 9 areas.

Areas that have improved since the last survey in 2020

Results in these areas were better than in 2020:

• Support to have a better quality of life, where 93.7% of respondents said services supported them with this. This was higher than 2020 (93.1%) and higher than England overall (90.4%).
• Support with the way you spend your time, where 63.1% of respondents who felt they needed support with this said that services supported them with this. This was higher than 2020 (60.3%) but lower than England overall (68.2%).
• Help with social contact, where 62.2% of respondents who felt that they needed support with this said that services helped them with this. This was higher than 2020 (60.3%) but lower than England overall (68.2%).
• Help keeping your home clean and comfortable, where 64.9% of respondents who felt they needed support with this said that services helped them with this. This was slightly higher than 2020 (58.2%) but significantly lower than England overall (72.2%).
• Help getting food and drink, where 82.4% of respondents who felt they needed help with this said that services did help them with this. This was higher than 2020 (73.5%) and higher than England overall (80.4%).
• Thinking about the good and bad things that make up your quality of life, how would you describe your quality of life, where 63% responded that it was either good or better. This was better than 2020 (61.3%) and better than England overall (60.8%).
• Do care and support services help you have control over your daily life, where 90.2% said either “yes” or that they did not need care and support to have control over their daily life. This was an improvement on 89.9% in 2020 and better than England overall (87.6%).
• Feeling safe, where 72.9% of respondents stated that they felt as safe as they wanted. This was higher than 2020 (68.5%) and higher than England overall (69.2%).

Areas that have worsened since the last survey in 2020

Results in these areas were worse than 2020:

• Overall, how satisfied are you with the care and support services you receive, where 89.4% were either quite (23.9%), very or extremely satisfied (65.5%). This was lower than 2020 (90.7%) but better than England overall (87.9%).
• 83.9% said that either having care and support made them feel better about themselves or did not negatively affect how they felt about themselves. This was lower than 2020 (88.9%) and lower than England overall (84.1%).
• How the way I am helped and treated makes me feel about myself, where 87.1% stated it made them feel better or did not affect the way they felt. This was worse than 2020 (89.6%) but better than England overall (85.5%).
• The proportion of people who use services who found it easy to access information about support, where 60.3% answered positively. This was lower than 66.8% in 2020 and lower than England overall (64.6%).
• How you spend your time, where 69.7% stated that they were at least able to do enough of things they valued and enjoyed with their time. This was lower than 2020 (71.9%) and lower than England overall (67.1%).
• How much control you have over your life, where only 32.4% felt they had as much control as they wanted. This was lower than 2020 (37%) and lower than the England average (34.1%).
• Choice over care and support, where 73.3% either said they had enough choice or did not need choice. This was lower than 2020 (74.4%) but higher than England overall (68.1%).
• Keeping clean and presentable in appearance, where 85.2% of respondents who felt they needed help said that services did help them with this. This was lower than 2020 (85.4%) and lower than England overall (85.4%).
• Help feeling safe, where 72.3% felt support services helped them to feel safe. This was lower than 2020 (82.8%) and lower than England overall (85.6%).

Comparison with the national results

Cambridgeshire performed better than the England average on the following areas:

• Health in general
• Quality of life
• Control over daily life
• Feeling safe
• Getting out and about
• How well your house is designed to meet your needs
• Help getting food and drink
• How the way you are treated makes you feel
• Choice over care and support

Local questions

Alongside the national questions Cambridgeshire asked two local questions “What do you use to find information and advice about services or benefits?”

Free text questions were also included to ask what respondents thought adult social care did well and what we could do better. Below are some of the key themes identified from responses to these questions.

Key themes - What do you think we do well?

• Lots of positive comments about care provision, in particular day opportunities and home care.
• Support and advice and help to develop new skills from support workers
• Reablement, equipment, technology enabled care and occupational therapy.
• Co-ordination of care and finding care at short notice
• Training and positive attitude of staff

Key themes – What could we do better?

• Care call time too short or rushed and not always on time or cancelled.
• More staff, more day care.
• Better communication, including in accessible formats – e.g. Makaton, signing.
• Better training for staff in working with people with learning disabilities.
• Better / more visible monitoring of care providers and vetting of care staff.
• Returning telephone calls.
• Shortage of support for people with more complex health needs.
• More information on services and activities available in the local area, closer links to voluntary sector and befriending services.
• Work opportunities with support.
• Speed and accessibility of letters and invoicing.
• Better seamless working between health and social care services.

What are we doing about the results?

Improving control over daily life

We are doing further work to ensure the wishes of the person are clearly fed into care and support plans and safeguarding enquiries. Practice audits will focus on this area.

Improving social contact

Our care and support planning is focusing on supporting people to maintain social networks. This is also looked at in reviews.

Overall satisfaction

We learn from complaints to address issues that commonly cause dissatisfaction.

We also share case studies and compliments we receive when we have got things right so that we can learn from practice that delivers good outcomes too.

For this survey there was a local question added around what we do well and what we could do better. The responses to this question will be fed into our service improvement workstreams.

We have also been working with our co-production forums to develop customer feedback questionnaires. These will become part of our day-to-day work. This will mean that we have a better real time view of the experience of those accessing adult social care.

Access to information and advice

Access to information and advice is one of the key priorities identified by our Adult Social Care Partnership Boards. We continue to work with the Boards to find ways to improve accessibility.

As part of this work we have reviewed our standard letters to ensure they are more informative. We also working with the Speak Out Council to ensure information for people with a learning disability is accessible.

Work is currently underway to make health and social care information more aligned. GPs and other NHS staff will use the new social prescribing websites and referral system across health and social care.

Helping people to feel safe

Work has been done in the past to understand what might lead to people feeling unsafe.

The most common theme for older people was the fear of falling whilst outside the house.

For younger adults with a learning disability it was fear of crime in their local neighbourhood.

We will be doing some further work with our co-production groups to explore if the reasons for feeling unsafe have changed since the Covid-19 pandemic and to consider how support services might help people to feel safe.

Easy Read information on the Adult Social Care Survey 2022