North London’s top-rated care service under huge pressure as demand hits record high

Camden’s adult social care services are facing growing pressure as record numbers of people are asking the council for help.

The borough’s cabinet member for health and adult social care, Anna Wright, said demand reached its highest ever level in a single year last year. More than 5,800 residents approached the local authority throughout 2024/25, marking a 10% increase from the year before.

The strain has been made worse by “significant” carer vacancies, she said, while a larger number of sector workers were also waiting for their assessments.

The update comes months after Camden became the first local authority in the country to receive an ‘Outstanding’ rating from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) under its new grading system for adult social care.

Wright said the council was “doing everything it could to tackle longer waiting times” and to address job vacancies and the wider situation. She added that growing demand for increasingly complicated services was being driven both by local factors and “the big picture”.

“Rising poverty and rising inequality express themselves through demand for care, because they affect health and wellbeing,” she said, “but in Camden, we have a significant population churn and a significant rise in homelessness.

“All the pressures from recent years are playing out on the front door in social care.”

However, waiting times for occupational therapy in the borough had shrunk with no-one waiting for more than three months for an assessment, according to the cabinet member’s report.

Wright added that Camden was “still the only council in the country to receive the top CQC rating.”

Councillor Anna Burrage had asked the social care chief whether the rating had led to people “jumping on the bandwagon, for want of a better phrase.”

On the “significant” number of vacancies, the social care chief said agency workers were sometimes plugging the gap, but the local authority was focused on not using this option.

According to the Town Hall’s report, there were more care workers from overseas looking for work in London than there were job openings, but Camden was focusing on finding staff locally. Meanwhile, recruitment in the borough had been “stable”.

The council did note, however, that some private businesses in Camden had suspended or revoked care worker visas.