Fears pandemic could delay early reporting of safeguarding concerns
An Auditor's report has found only 40% of social care reviews have taken place in Dorset
COVID is continuing to impact on Dorset Council services – according to the latest auditor’s report.
A report to councillors this week shows that only 40 per cent of social care reviews have taken place which, the report warns, could affect the early reporting of safeguarding concerns or detecting fraudulent claims.
The report says that Covid has had a significant impacted on the ability of staff to carry out face-to-face visits.
It also notes that the council does not have a method for recording the reasons why Direct Payments or Social Care packages end which is says reduces the chances of learning lessons from case reviews and introducing improvements.
Potential loss of care home staff
It also warns that it is still unclear what effect the requirement for all care home staff and visiting professionals to be fully vaccinated will have – although it its believed more 97 per cent have received all the necessary jabs.
Councillors were told that those not jabbed may amount to 70 workers across 28 care homes who may have to leave their jobs if they continue to be unvaccinated and cannot be re-deployed.
The internal audit report, which covers the period until the end of December 2021, says that Dorset Council is making progress with other, outstanding, issues with the number of outstanding issues dropping from 63 in September to 33 in December.
New software and data protection
The report says a number of areas where improvement has been demonstrated includes the successful introduction of software which has cut down significantly on duplicate payments although £4,176 was still discovered during the audit process, almost all of it now recovered.
The council’s audit and governance committee was told on Monday that on December 21st only half of the council staff had undertaken a mandatory data protection online module, potentially putting the council at risk from online activities – but following a push from managers the numbers completing the module had now risen to around 70per cent.
A number of items remain rated at high risk for the council – including a risk of burn-out for some staff who have been dealing with high volumes of work since the start of Covid with staff being advised to seek help if they continued to feel under pressure and to ensure they take leave owing to them.