People First Programme Social Care & Inclusion – Adult Services

Access and Response Service Consultation feedback

We asked would this be better You said…. People said it needs enough staff to make it work People don’t want 0845 number, need an ordinary number Some people would need different arrangements to contact us People aid it would be useful to check how well things worked out for people after they contacted us

We Did We have checked carefully how many staff we will need We will not use a 0845 number We will have lots of different ways for people to get in touch We will have a system to check how well this is working

You also said…. People felt that there should not be long waiting times for calls to be answered People did not want a queuing system or automated messages. The service should aim for 100% customer satisfaction and this should be checked often. The service needed to think about those with different communication needs.

We Did People will not have to wait along time There will not be a queuing system We will aim for 100% satisfaction We will offer lots of different communication routes

We asked you about your experiences You Said Service should be like the Centre For independent living There is nowhere to go if you don’t need a social worker Need to talk to a person People should have free calls, or a call back service Need to have enough telephone lines The staff need to make people feel like their call is important

We Did You will always talk to a person People will ring you back if you need them to Staff will be trained to listen We will not book ordinary appointments for social workers at this time

You also said…. People had bad experiences with contacting teams such as the mental health crisis team. People need customer care training Staff need to understand different communication needs Reviewing and monitoring of the service is essential. Remove the need to wait for budget approval Don’t keep people waiting more than 1-2 minutes

We Did We will learn from peoples bad experiences We will train all staff to a high standard We wont keep people waiting for long before answering the call

We asked how should this work You Said People made a number of suggestions about how the service should be contactable these included: Telephone Text message Minicom Letter Type talk Website direct link Via community alarms fax Speed dialling Video phone face to face contact should be considered in a central location

We Did People will be able to contact us through: Telephone Text message Minicom Letter Type talk Website direct link Via community alarms fax Speed dialling Video phone face to face contact (as required and not in the access centre)

You also said…. 8am until 8pm was felt to be a good Consider whole days on Saturday Look at opening on a Sunday Give a different number for workers to ring Priority referrals from third sector agencies.

We Did We will review opening hours and use of the service once its fully operational We will look at how staff get through to us in the centre if they need to

You also said…. Monitoring the service was seen as important options: Call back monitoring Mystery shopping Surveys Follow up calls Asking at the end of the call Talking to service users and carers

We Did We will out a system in place to check what user and carer experience of the service is

You also said…. Service users and carers should be involved in training staff The office should be environmentally friendly, paper free Information on access in all formats The group to help plan the launch and visit the centre What happens with Disability Facilities grants funding Can call navigators book appointments into allocated social workers diaries

We Did We will look at ways of involving users and carers in training for staff We will look for environmentally friendly ways of working We will arrange for you to be involved in a site visit and the launch of the service We will not be booking appointments in diaries for allocated workers at this time