Our Improvement Plan

Our Adult Social Care Improvement Plan brings together all the work underway to improve services, strengthen our approach and deliver better outcomes for Nottingham residents.

Built around the Enabling Gloriously Ordinary Lives strategy, it provides one clear roadmap for improvement over the next two years, helping us respond to feedback, regulatory requirements and local priorities.

The plan brings together colleagues, partners, communities and people who draw on care and support to create a more joined-up, person-centred and sustainable Adult Social Care service.

What does this mean for you?

Over the next two years you may see:

• New ways of working built around strengths-based practice and the "What Matters" approach.
• Improvements to forms, processes and digital tools.
• Better use of data and feedback to improve services.
• Stronger commissioning, brokerage and provider partnerships, helping people access the right support at the right time and improving the range and quality of services available across Nottingham.
• Greater involvement of people who draw on care and support in shaping services.

ASC Improvement Programme Structure

The Improvement Plan is made up of a series of programmes organised around three key areas of work:

Improving outcomes for people

Making sure people receive the right support at the right time and can live well in their communities.

Building capability and capacity

Strengthening our workforce, commissioning arrangements and service development capability.

Creating the conditions for success

Using better data, digital tools, governance and co-production to support improvement.

Improvement Plan on a Page

Our Ambition for the Future

Our Purpose

Enable people in Nottingham to live gloriously ordinary lives in the place they call home, with the people and things they love, doing what matters to them.

Adult Social Care in Nottingham exists to:

• Support independence, dignity and connection.
• Sustain caring relationships and communities.
• Prevent avoidable loss of independence and wellbeing.
• Act as a responsible steward of public resources.

Our Shift in Approach

Our Strategic Priorities

• Start with life, not services.
• Intervene earlier and prevent escalation.
• Build community and connection.
• Enable a sustainable, responsive system.
• Work as one system.
• Measure what matters and continuously improve.

What Success Looks Like

• More people living independently at home for longer, feeling listened to, respected and in control of their lives.
• Reduced demand at the front door and in crisis services.
• Faster, more consistent and equitable access to the right support.
• Stronger communities and informal support networks.
• A confident workforce able to work differently.
• A financially sustainable Adult Social Care system.

Our Delivery Enablers

• Strong leadership and governance.
• Data-led decision making and demand insight.
• Workforce capability and culture change.
• Co-production embedded in design and delivery.
• Clear performance measures linked to outcomes.

CQC Assessment and Our Improvement Journey

In 2025, Adult Social Care was assessed by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and received an overall rating of Requires Improvement, with significantly weak scores relating to two key areas:

• Safe pathways, systems and transitions.
• Governance, management and sustainability.

As a result, Nottingham City Council is under additional scrutiny from the Department of Health and Social Care in relation to these areas.

Our Improvement Plan has been developed to address these findings through a single, coordinated programme of change. Much of this work is already underway, helping us strengthen services, improve outcomes for residents and build a more consistent, sustainable Adult Social Care system for the future.

To read the full assessment report, visit the Care Quality Commission website.

Improvement activity already underway

• Developing the new What Matters assessment approach.
• Designing future Adult Social Care operating models.
• Building a Service Development and Quality Assurance function.
• Improving pathways for people leaving hospital.
• Strengthening data, performance reporting and digital capability.
• Embedding learning from reviews, audits and feedback.

Download the Plan

Download the Adult Social Care Improvement Plan to explore how we are improving services, enhancing outcomes for residents and driving continuous improvement across Adult Social Care.

• Adult Social Care Improvement Plan

Thank you to everybody that had an input into our heart of the strategy consultation.  If you want to read what you told us during the consultation earlier this year and what we're doing about it click here.