If the information in this article is correct, the council are failing on several care act duties. Even the big ones, like the duty to assess. Where is the CQC in this as the regulator?

I suspect the council leadership doesn’t understand the difference between the areas of social work. Mental Health and Learning Disability social work is very different in its approach to relationship based practice and strengths based practice.

Bringing in agency staff with a high turnover is a recipe for disaster if you have committed staff. A small investment in retention will cost far less.

I’m my opinion, what staff are talking about here is nothing short of whistleblowing, and the councils executive leadership and monitoring officer should be very worried if they’re not taking appropriate action to mitigate these risks that are clearly well know, but arguably not understood.

The council has a duty to furnish its DASS with enough staff to do the job. If the DASS isn’t asking for more staffing resource, they will be held accountable if an avoidable death occurs.

What’s needed here is investment in stabilising the team. Investment in staffing capacity mainly. I don’t really think it’s about wages. Bring in a team of agency staff for 12 months minimum while permanent recruitment takes place (allow a period of over staffing to catch up on backlogs), sort out procedures and Service level agreements with the trust.

It sounds to me like the finance side of the council is dictating to the operations side over what’s needed.