SOCIAL care for adults in Redbridge has been given a ringing endorsement by Government inspectors - for the third year in a row.

The borough is one of just seven - out of the 33 in London - to have achieved a rating of excellent from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) for each of the last three years.

The CQC define excellent as a service that overall delivers well above minimum requirements for people, is highly effective and fully contributes to the achievement wider outcomes for the community.

Cllr John Fairley-Churchill, Redbridge Council’s cabinet member for adult social services said: “I’m exceedingly happy that once again the staff led by John Powell managed to deliver exceptional care to adults in the borough. We tend to have people who actually care and that transmits itself to the delivery of services.”

For its report, the CQC pulled together three separate studies looking at how good councils were at commissioning services, whether the performance of care homes, nursing agencies, and home care agencies was improving, and how council’s provision was doing against seven national benchmarks.

Cllr Fairley-Churchill said the greatest challenge to his department was the borough’s aging population.

He added: “I know this sounds terribly callous but we now have large numbers of elderly people in their 80s. Elderly people are continuing to live having ailments that ten or 20 years ago would have been ‘ta ta, bye bye, you’re off’.

“As people get older lots have major mobility problems that increase the need for care packages and intervention of one sort or another.

“Young people with learning difficulties - 30 or 35 years ago people with Downs Syndrome were not expected to last very long into their adulthood. We used to give adult care for ten years, now we’re giving it for 40.

“We have a wonderful team of which I’m immensely proud. I do not take kindly to people and I have often said I wouldn’t have the patience to deal with some of the people they deal with.”