HEALTH bosses at Wokingham Borough Council (WBC) will bring statutory elements of the authority’s adult social care back under council control, but ignored calls to set up a ‘major investigation’ into the current healthcare system.

Statutory social care services are currently provided for borough residents by Optalis – a company partly owned by Wokingham Borough Council (WBC) – with the authority delivering other adult care.

It was confirmed statutory provisions will come back under council control at an executive meeting on Thursday, June 27,

after a WBC report claimed the current model was “inefficient”

, suggesting residents would benefit from receiving care from one organisation rather than two.

According to Liberal Democrats councillor Lindsay Ferris, some patients were waiting as long as 16 weeks for care packages to be sorted out.

Before WBC’s top team approved the switch, council health boss Charles Margetts said: “We believe that by bringing these changes all under one roof this will give our officers direct control and enable us to transact change quicker and to drive up the standards of what we do.

“We are fully committed to Optalis and to continuing these functions. We are bringing the statutory part, which is shared, directly under our control.

“I think our staff work very hard for us and in Optalis and I thank them for everything they do.”

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Martin Farrow, CEO of Optalis, added: “The recent executive decision that statutory functions will transfer from Optalis to Wokingham Borough Council will lead to a pathway of care that enhances the services we have delivered on behalf of Wokingham since 2011.

“Optalis has a history of high-quality service delivery, exemplified by its 90% ‘Good’ CQC ratings, and more recently its first Outstanding rating in Care.

“We will continue to provide a large proportion of adult social care services on behalf of Wokingham Borough Council.”

The move is expected to cost nearly £600,000 in the first three years after 48 staff switch from Optalis contracts to WBC contracts.

Cllr Margetts claimed the process would take three months to complete, with improvements expected within six months.

Earlier at the meeting, Cllr Ferris had asked Cllr Margetts to create a group which would conduct a “major investigation” into the switch after outlining the Lib Dems’ “severe concerns” over the safeguarding of vulnerable adults cared for by the current system.

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Speaking to the News after the meeting, he said: “There must be a problem otherwise they would not be doing this.

“I wanted an investigation into how we got into this position and into how we get out of it.

“Safeguarding needs to taken seriously. I really don’t think they have thought this through and I won’t back off.”

Responding to Cllr Ferris at the meeting, Cllr Margetts shrugged off suggestions adult social care services was having problems and instead suggested analysis of the healthcare setup would be undertaken by a council scrutiny committee.

He said: “The main reason for this change is principally to tidy up the statutory controls.

“We believe that if we bring these under our direct control we will be able to improve performance and the quality of the service generally which is a benefit to all our residents.”

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It was revealed an independent peer review would commence in September to determine whether the changes were making a positive difference.