Adult social care in north and West Cumbria requires improvement, a watchdog has found.
The Care Quality Commission assessed the services provided by Cumberland Council.
It said in 2023/2024, around 4,465 people per 100,000 people were accessing long-term adult social care and the authority spent £104,350,000.
The Cumberland area has a population of around 273,000 people.
The 55-page report, published today, said overall evidence showed that the service had some shortfalls.
It found:
- The local authority didn’t always provide people with access to information in a way that was convenient for them, such as easy-read formats. Also, people sometimes found it difficult to access a British Sign Language interpreter, as there was only three being used in the west of Cumberland.
- The local authority was experiencing staffing pressures across services. Therefore, they were using agency staff who weren’t always local and didn’t know the area.
- The local authority recognised that they need to do more work to engage with seldom-heard communities, to identify what support they needed.
- The authority had a significant Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards authorisation waiting list. This left people at risk of being deprived of their liberty unlawfully.
However, the assessment team also said:
- Most people were satisfied with their care and support and felt that they had choice and control over their daily lives.
- Leaders were visible and accessible for staff. They were also supportive and ensured that new staff received any necessary training.
- Most young people were safely supported to move from children to adults’ services.
It said the authority was on an ‘improvement journey’ and understood its areas for development.
It added: “Resources had been allocated to improve services, but the impact of this was not yet always evident.
“The local authority had a commitment to learning, through external reviews and when things go wrong. Co-production was being better developed, with some positive examples using people’s voice.
“Strategies were being developed across the service.”
What is Cumberland Council’s response to the report?
Cumberland Council said it welcomed the findings of the assessment and added the assessment started over a year ago.
It said many of the improvements identified had previously been recognised and highlighted to the CQC in the council’s own self-assessment.
It addressed the four main points the Care Quality Commission raised.
Access to information
It said it was committed to making sure people could access information in ways that met their needs.
It added: “We have a contract in place with DA Languages to provide interpretation and translation services. This covers 17 commonly required languages and three less frequently used languages, with alternative formats such as Braille available on an ad-hoc basis.
“Access to British Sign Language interpreters is provided through a Cumberland-wide contract with Cumbria Deaf Association. Performance is monitored to ensure requests are met. Since April 2025, all BSL interpreter requests have been actioned with no capacity issues identified.”
Staffing pressures
The authority said staffing pressures related to frontline roles, particularly social workers and occupational therapists. It said there was a national issue in recruiting these roles and represented a challenge across local government.
It added: “Cumberland Council has taken steps to address this, including social work apprenticeships and international recruitment. The council makes limited use of externally provided workers to maintain service continuity.”
At the time of the commission’s visit in June 2025, vacancies represented 3.5% of frontline operational capacity and have since reduced to 1.6%, the authority said.
In September 2025, six agency staff were working remotely in triage roles, representing 3.2% of the frontline workforce.
This reduced to 1.6% by the end of September. Since then, use of agency staff in frontline operational teams has continued to reduce and now stands at 1.4%.
Community connection
Cumberland Council added that it had been actively strengthening engagement with communities whose voices were not always heard.
It said: “This includes our commitment as a City of Sanctuary, a dedicated Global Resettlement Team with council-employed interpreters, delivery of the Armed Forces Covenant and support for veterans, and a council motion recognising Care Experienced people with the same level of legal protection as a protected characteristic.
“Within adult social care, this work includes a co-produced Carers Charter, targeted engagement with the D/deaf community leading to clear improvements in accessibility, and consultation with older people and rural communities through Ageing Well in Cumberland.”
Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards
The safeguards are legal protections that ensure people in care or hospital settings are not restricted or treated in ways that limit their freedom without proper authority.
It said it had brought in best interest assessors and followed national best practice to prioritise cases in respect of the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards. It said demand nationally was high and the authority had experienced pressures.
What did the CQC say?
Chris Badger, CQC’s chief inspector of adult social care and integrated care, said: “At this inspection, we found Cumberland Council needed to make improvements in how it’s providing adult social care to people living in the area.
“While we saw strong partnership working and genuine commitment to person-centred care, the local authority does have further work to do to ensure people are consistently receiving the support they need.
“We found people were waiting too long for occupational therapy assessments, equipment, financial assessments and annual reviews, with people with a learning disability waiting the longest for their review.
“There was also limited access to specialist support for people with mental health needs, dementia or a learning disability, which meant families could have to travel further away to see their loved one.
“Additionally, due to Cumberland being so rural, it created challenges for some people accessing home care support, and nursing care in a timely way.
“Unpaid carers were positive about the support they received from an external carers service, including receiving useful information and advice.
“However, most of them found their caring roles challenging. They didn’t always get the chance to take breaks, and respite care was limited in some areas, which affected their wellbeing. They were also concerned that contingency plans for support weren’t always in place which made them feel nervous about who would look after their loved one if they couldn’t.
“However, the authority worked well with health partners to support people’s independence. For example, we heard about a pilot between the local authority and integrated care board to support the discharge of people who had a stroke.
“Aimed at supporting them in the community to help prevent unnecessary hospital re-admissions, the pilot had saved 100 care hours and improved people’s independence.
“Additionally, the local authority had improved their systems to manage safeguarding risks in a timely manner, and staff felt that they received strong support and guidance from leaders to help keep people safe.
“Cumberland Council has clear plans to address the issues identified, including improving direct payments processes. We’ll continue to monitor progress and look forward to seeing how their future plans mature.”
Waiting times
There were some waits for assessments, the report said.
Assessors visited in June 2025 and the CQC said data showed 127 people were waiting for an assessment, an increase of nine people waiting since data provided for January 2025.
There were 811 people waiting for an annual review as of June 2025, including 51 people who had been waiting 1,000 days.
Most of the 51 people were said to be reviews which were under the learning disability service and all of reviews were due to be completed by the end of July 2025.
An update from the local authority provided in September 2025 confirmed 539 of the 811 outstanding reviews had been completed and the highlighted outstanding learning disability reviews were completed by the end of July.
The council was taking steps to address this, the Care Quality Commission said.
It added: “Agency staff were supporting staff capacity and teams were working flexibly across regions to support people to access assessments.
“An external service was also commissioned in January 2025 to complete 200 reviews. A staff team also told us they had also been completing non-urgent reviews
where people’s needs to support to reduce the backlog, over the phone.
“As a result of actions, the number of people waiting for reviews had decreased by over a third since January 2025.
“The local authority also forecasted all reviews to be completed within required timescales by June 2026. However, waits for reviews remained high.”
It added that there were also significant waits for occupational therapy assessments and equipment, but the council was reviewing the services it got from providers.
It added that the local authority had organised its frontline teams to be responsive to both urgency and type of need and was focused on providing a person-centred and strength-based approach to supporting people and assessing their needs.
The council said that some delays referenced in the report were not always within its control.
Respite for carers
It added: “As part of its ongoing improvement work, the council has strengthened support for unpaid carers, including access to respite.
“Respite provision has increased by 25% and is now available across Cumberland. Investment for carers through the Better Care Fund has more than doubled for 2025-26.
“At the same time, the council continues to enhance other services, including safeguarding and waiting times.
“The council also notes that some delays referenced in the report were not always within the local authority’s control. Work continues to minimise avoidable delays and to support people through these processes as effectively as possible.
“Cumberland Council will keep staff, people who use services and their families, and partners informed by sharing outcomes, improvement plans and progress.
“The council remains committed to delivering person-centred, compassionate and sustainable adult social care that supports people to stay healthy and independent.”
