Wigan Council’s October update revisits its outstanding March CQC assessment, covering prevention, independence and assessment access alongside a sensory support waiting gap.
The result and the remaining challenges
Wigan’s 95 per cent adult social care assessment means the Care Quality Commission (CQC) rated the council’s adult care responsibilities outstanding. The result recognised assessment access, preventative support and work helping people remain independent, while identifying areas needing improvement. Wigan Council highlighted it on 9 October 2026, following publication on 18 March 2026.
The figure is an assessment score, not a satisfaction rate or a rating for every care provider. Understanding the CQC assessment means looking beyond the headline to the services, reporting periods and remaining gaps behind it.
What Wigan’s outstanding rating measures
The council’s October announcement revisited an earlier result. It said a health and social care scrutiny committee report confirmed a score of 95 out of 100, which the council described as England’s highest.
The chronology matters. CQC published its announcement on 18 March 2026. The council’s Annual Governance Statement records an inspection visit in December 2025, followed by the March result. October was therefore a follow-up, not evidence of a fresh inspection.
The adult social care assessment examined Wigan Council’s responsibilities under the Care Act 2014. These included access to care and support for working-age disabled adults, older people and unpaid carers. Its scope was the council’s responsibilities, rather than a collective judgement on every local care home or support provider.
The adult social care assessment score
CQC considered nine quality statements across four themes, with each statement scored out of four. Seven received four. Two received three: equity in experience and outcomes; and safe pathways, systems and transitions. The published overall result was outstanding, with a score of 95 per cent.
In its 18 March announcement, CQC described this as the highest score so far among published local authority assessment reports. That is a dated comparison, not confirmation of a continuously updated national ranking.
Assessment access and the sensory support waiting gap
CQC awarded assessing needs a score of four. Its detailed findings on assessing needs describe access, decision-making and financial assessments, alongside a distinct waiting-time concern for sensory support.
For general assessments, November 2025 council data recorded a median wait of zero days. It also showed 66 per cent were allocated to locality teams on the day received, 28 people were waiting and 331 assessments were completed that month.
These figures describe different parts of the process. Allocation to a team is not the same as completing an assessment. A zero-day median describes the middle of the recorded waiting-time distribution; it does not mean nobody waited.
Specialist sensory assessments presented a different picture. November 2025 data showed a median wait of 41 days. Staff told CQC they risk-assessed referrals, provided early interventions and responded promptly to urgent needs. Those responses accompanied the waiting-time issue rather than removing it from the findings.
The adult social care assessment also found eligibility decisions clear, transparent and consistently applied. People received copies of assessments explaining their needs and the eligibility decision. July 2025 data recorded one eligibility complaint in the preceding year. Further discussion led to an offered reassessment, which was declined.
Financial assessments were considered separately. CQC described arrangements as clear and timely. November 2025 data recorded two people waiting and a zero-day median wait. July 2025 data showed 97 per cent were allocated within one day.
The report also recorded two formal complaints and one informal complaint about care charges in 2024/25. Together, these findings show why the headline score needs its supporting detail. They describe historical reporting periods, not waiting times or complaint totals measured in October 2026.
Prevention through neighbourhood and community partnerships
The adult social care assessment looked beyond responses after someone needed formal care. CQC described prevention informed by shared population data, including falls prevention and the Be Well physical activity offer.
Its findings on supporting healthier lives also described a prevention hub bringing together health, housing, police and community partners. Council data recorded 773 referrals and 1,114 multi-agency checks during 2024.
Those are activity measures with different meanings. Referrals and multi-agency checks are not interchangeable counts. Neither figure should be read as a count of unique residents, or as a total for 2026.
Seven integrated neighbourhood teams supported preventative work. Neighbourhood connectors helped develop longer-term community support rather than simply directing people elsewhere. That distinction is important: finding a service and building a continuing connection to support are not the same activity.
CQC also described the Complex Dependency team. It supported people outside Care Act eligibility who faced difficulties including substance misuse, housing problems and homelessness. This was a distinct part of the preventative approach, not evidence that everyone qualified for every form of council-funded care.
The CQC assessment findings connect prevention with housing, health and community relationships. These strands help explain the work behind Wigan’s outstanding rating: the report considered how organisations worked together, not only how individual care assessments were processed.
Reablement, housing and support for independence
Reablement helps people regain or maintain everyday independence. In Wigan, CQC described a combination of occupational therapy, equipment and community support. Council data cited in the report showed a quarter of referrals came through community pathways rather than hospital discharge.
That finding matters because the service was not solely a response to leaving hospital. The adult social care assessment also examined support reaching people through community routes, alongside its role after discharge.
CQC reported two separate outcome measures for 2024/25. The Adult Social Care Outcomes Framework measure showed 98.94 per cent of people receiving reablement made no further support request for a year. The national comparison was 77.16 per cent.
This measures recorded further requests. It should not be rewritten as proof that everyone in that group had no continuing needs, or that no other support was involved.
A separate measure from Short and Long Term Support data concerned people aged over 65 discharged from hospital into reablement. It showed 85.37 per cent were at home 91 days later, compared with 83.70 per cent nationally.
The two percentages cannot be combined into one success rate. They concern different populations, follow-up periods and reporting systems. One tracks further support requests over a year; the other records whether older people were home after 91 days.
Beyond reablement, CQC recognised partnership working that helped people access housing options. It also reported positive feedback about equipment and home adaptations supporting safety and independence.
Direct payments and personalised support
Personal choice was another strand of the adult social care assessment. CQC described direct payments supporting individual choices through community activities, equipment and courses enabling people to establish small businesses.
Direct payments allow people to arrange agreed support themselves. The examples in the report show the range of choices involved; they are not promises of employment, business success or entitlement to a particular purchase.
Recorded uptake in 2024/25 was 21.41 per cent in Wigan, against 24.51 per cent nationally. Although numerically lower, CQC described the result as similar to England. Uptake describes how widely the option was used, rather than the quality of each person’s support.
November 2025 council data showed an average of 11 days to set up a direct payment after budget agreement. That starting point matters. The figure does not describe the whole period from someone’s first contact, their assessment or an initial discussion about support.
Staff initiative and residents’ role in service quality
The council’s October account emphasised relationships between services, providers, communities and residents. It also described a staff culture encouraging initiative and new approaches, while acknowledging that further improvement remained necessary.
CQC identified a network of people with lived experience who had been trained to check service quality and report concerns to council staff. This gave residents a role in examining services, rather than leaving quality checks entirely to professionals.
Partners gave positive feedback about safeguarding processes, describing work that reduced risk and prevented escalation. Staff valued shared decision-making and a culture of trust and respect. These are findings about practice and organisational culture, not guarantees about every future experience.
The 2024/25 Survey of Adult Carers in England measure showed 21.55 per cent of unpaid carers felt encouraged and supported, against 32.44 per cent nationally. CQC classified this as worse than England, alongside mostly positive interview feedback. Its trained lived-experience network was a separate participation mechanism, not a group identified entirely as unpaid carers.
Wigan’s outstanding rating rests on this wider combination: assessment arrangements, prevention, independence support, personal choice and relationships. The sensory assessment waiting gap remains part of that account, alongside the strong overall result.
For the detail behind the headline, consult CQC’s assessment summary and its individual findings. They explain what was assessed, which periods the figures describe and where improvement remained necessary.