Resident views on adult social care: people with dementia and their carers

At the start of 2024, Healthwatch Brent met with the Brent Adult Social Care team to agree an engagement programme gathering perspectives from local residents about their experiences with adult social care services. The aim of this engagement is to support Brent Council in understanding the real views and experiences of local residents, to support them in improving the service.  This report looks at the experience of people with dementia and that of their carers.  They spoke to 42 people via interviews and focus groups.

The majority of participants shared neutral or mixed feedback, expressing that although some aspects of the service do work (such as the quality of local community services and the attitudes of social workers), there are many areas of frustration. 

Key findings

Contacting Brent’s Customer Care Team

Six of the carers shared their experiences of speaking with the customer care team, and they all felt that this experience could have been improved. In particular, they noted the following challenges: 

•  Long waiting times on the phone 
• Lack of support for people with hearing loss to be able to manage the conversation 
• Abrupt manner and lack of compassion from staff

Receiving a care needs assessment

All 20 participants of the carers focus group agreed that they had to chase up the social care team before anything happened to progress their case. They told us that it feels like chasing the team is an expected part of the process, and if you don’t then nothing happens.

Receiving care after a care needs assessment

Several carers had received a care needs assessment but had not been able to get the care or support they were eligible for due to delays in the process.

The report has three recommendations and a response from Brent Adult Social Care.