Barnet Council social care outsourcing disaster

It seems that Barnet Council have undergone a massive failure in provision of social care, following a change over of care providers. This story, which has been broken by the Hendon Times  - http://m.times-series.co.uk/news/14745911._Disaster____care_company_changeover_goes_badly_wrong/ - is just the latest in a sorry list of failure.

The Conservative councillor in charge,  Sachin Rajput, chairman of the adults and safeguarding committee, said: “We are very disappointed the transfer of our enablement service from our former provider to our new provider Aquaflo Care did not go as we had planned. This falls below the level of service our residents should expect and we are working closely with Aquaflo to make sure our vulnerable residents are safe. We are taking this matter very seriously.”

The programme which provides a six-week period of care to people who need help regaining their independence, was taken over by Aquaflo Care two weeks ago (September 5). But errors which arose from the takeover of the service, which was previously outsourced to Housing 21, left social service staff overworked and many people expecting care not knowing why they were going without.

The Barnet Eye is making its own enquiries and will report in more detail later.