The quality of care homes has worsened in the last year in
more than a third of local authorities (37%) Independent Age has
found.
With over 2.6 million over-65s living in areas where an
increasing number of care homes are rated ‘inadequate’ or
‘requires improvement’ by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) many
older people and their families have no choice but to choose a
poorly-performing care home.
The older people’s charity analysed a snapshot of the CQC’s
inspection data in January 2018 and January 2019, and
found:
· More
than a third of local authorities saw a drop in performance
between the two dates. This is an extremely concerning trend, and
a stark increase on the 22% of local authorities where care home
quality worsened between 2017 and 2018
· In
Manchester local authority, 44% of care homes were rated
‘Inadequate’ or ‘Requires Improvement’
· There
were 16 local authority areas where between 30%-40% of care homes
attracted this rating. For a care home to receive a ‘Requires
Improvement’ or ‘Inadequate’ rating, the service must be failing
to deliver the minimum quality of care that is expected. Issues
highlighted in poorly rated care homes have included residents
not receiving medicine as they were prescribed, and their
nutrition and hydration not being monitored.
Today’s report compares the immediate action taken by
Ofsted to address failing schools to the general acceptance of
poorly-performing care homes. The charity believes lessons can be
learned from the education sector’s approach to making
improvements. Ofsted’s approaches to tackling failing schools
have included a comprehensive improvement plan, such as
management changes, arranging for expert help from other schools
as well as regular re-inspections. These tactics are not
consistently employed across the care home sector, but could be
used to help tackle poor performance.
Independent Age is also calling for urgent action to end
the poor and inadequate quality of care. Residents and their
families fund care homes, as well as taxpayers, but increasingly
are not getting value for money. The charity is also
calling on the government to finalise a sustainable long term
funding settlement for social care now. Only with a substantial
investment which puts social care on a sustainable footing, can
the Government truly resource the sector so that it can tackle
unacceptable variations in quality.
George McNamara, Director of Policy and Influencing
at Independent Age, commented:
“These findings are truly alarming, and show thousands of
vulnerable older people live in homes that are failing to deliver
even the bare minimum.
“Years of dithering by the government, and the failure to
reform the social care system, is a main cause of increased
pressures on the care home market and more areas with poor
performers. Unless the forthcoming Green Paper is bold and
ambitious, it will do little to address the crisis in
care.
“Essentially, the government continues to stand by and do
nothing to address the quality of care suffered by older people,
many of whom live with conditions such as dementia, and who
are being robbed of their ability to enjoy life as much as
possible.
“As well as being dangerous, poor care is miserable,
involving things like being woken up in the night to be dressed
or taken to the toilet because of staff shortages. Care homes are
where many of us will live out our final months. No life should
end in misery.”
