Ensuring quality of social services is at the core of the activities of the European Social Network (ESN), and those of our members.

The Local Government Association (LGA), the national voice of local government in England, launched the programme Partners in Care and Health (PCH) in collaboration with the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS), also a member of ESN  

The programme supports local councils to improve the way they deliver adult social care and public health services by sharing best practice, developing tools and techniques, providing support, and building connections.

To ensure quality of social services, PCH is based on the concept of co-production – an equal partnership where people with lived and learnt experience of receiving care and support work together from start to finish.

 “We encourage local councils to co-produce services with the people who receive services to ensure the services are better designed, to better meet people’s needs, leading to better outcomes” said Hazel Summers, Director of Adult Social Care Improvement, LGA.

LGA has produced a series of case studies that described what life is like for people who use, or have recently used, care and support services.

Among those was Geoff, a carer for his wife who lives with multiple sclerosis. Care and support enabled him to stay in work, volunteer in the community, fulfil his duties as Mayor of St Helens, and continue providing care to his wife so she  could continue to live at home

“The role of social care in our lives has been vital and transformative. Without it  we would not have been able to lead such full lives.” -  Geoff Almond, former Mayor of St Helens.

In just a few short lines, Geoff powerfully conveys that adult social care matters because it supports people to live the life they want to live. In this way the service itself is, as ADASS describes it, “distinctive, valued, personal”.

Find more information about the programme here.