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Inspection of community care services for black and minority ethnic older people in the London Borough of Hackney 20-31 January 1997

This inspection took place in January 1997. The objective of the inspection was to evaluate the extent to which the social services departments arrangements for planning and delivering community care services appropriately address the needs of black and minority ethnic older people. The SSD impressed the inspectors with the commitment given to meet the needs of the black and minority older people in Hackney. There were also good relationships with the health authority and other agencies. Policies for developing services for older people were included in a range of documents including the community care plan, community care charter and service improvement plans. The SSD needed to pull together its various information sources on the needs of black elders to formally contribute to the planning process. We found that assessment continued to be the key to subsequent care planning and service provision. The procedures used for black and minority ethnic older people were the same as for others, but in the best examples were adapted to take account of language and cultural issues. Staff made genuine attempts to treat people with dignity and respect at all times and to ensure that the services provided responded to the different racial/cultural groups in the communities. There was the need for further training on equal opportunities to supplement that which had already been received. Much of the positive work that Hackney had undertaken was done in conjunction with housing associations, community centres and organisations. There is no doubt that some of the work being done by the SSD is raising the expectations of the range of communities. Meeting these will continue to provide a number of challenges.