Hundreds giving up on phone calls to BCP Council for adult social care help

TWO-HUNDRED people a week are abandoning calls to BCP Council for help with adult social care.

Most have to wait 10 minutes to get through as more people get in touch, writes Trevor Bevins of the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

A meeting of the health and adult social care overview and scrutiny committee heard the rise in callers to the adult social care contact centre was largely because of the cost-of-living crisis and pent-up demand from Covid restrictions.

Overall around 25% give up on a call before they get through.

The most recent figures for the second quarter of the year showed 9,921 callers of which 73% (7,203) got through with an average queuing time of just under 10 minutes.

The majority of those who failed to get through (71%) disconnected within 10 minutes, half of them within just one minute.

Councillors were told that the figures may be skewed by those who gave up quickly and then tried again later, or who found the information they needed elsewhere.

At the same time the contact centre has seen a 127% increase in emailed queries.

It has recently introduced online contact form to make sure a response is given by the correct staff, by collecting all the necessary information.

Calls to a specific line set up for crisis advice and foodbank vouchers have more than doubled in the year to October 2022, with around 160 calls and more than 100 food bank vouchers issued in the month.