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no.271 • £4.75 incorporating
May 2019 The Number One magazine for the care sector
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Home quality has worsened, research finds THE quality of care homes has worsened in the last year in more than a third of local authorities (37 per cent), research by Independent Age has found. With more than 2.6 million over 65s living in areas where an increasing number of care homes are rated ‘inadequate’ or ‘requires improvement’ by the 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: n More than a third of local authorities saw a drop in performance between the two dates. n In Manchester local authority, 44 per cent of care homes were rated ‘Inadequate’ or ‘Requires Improvement’. n There were 16 local authority areas where between 30 per cent and 40 per cent of care homes attracted this rating. 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. George McNamara, director of policy and influencing at Independent Age, said: “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.” Independent Age is calling for urgent action to end the poor and inadequate quality of care. The charity is also calling on the government to finalise a sustainable long term funding settlement for social care. 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.
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Retirement Village first to be staff owned
Caring UK columnist and Walnut Care chief executive Melanie Weatherley, has been awarded a fellowship with the National Institute for Health and Social Care Excellence. It is believed she is the first person from a small and medium sized independent care provider to be awarded a fellowship. Melanie is one of only 10 to receive the honour this year. NICE fellows are experienced leaders from the field of health and social care who act as ambassadors at regional and national levels.
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A NORTH East retirement village has become the first in the UK to be owned by its staff. Middleton Hall Retirement Village, based in Middleton St George outside Darlington, is now entirely owned by its 190 employees. The transfer to become an Employee Ownership Trust, and join the likes of John Lewis and Waitrose, follows months of preparation since the move was first announced by the retirement village in September 2018 in a bid to safeguard the longterm future and high quality facilities it offers. Middleton Hall’s managing director, Jeremy Walford, said: “In a business world where capitalism and especially social care businesses often have a bad name, an Employee Ownership Trust offers a different model of how a truly caring company can operate, so my personal decision was easy.” Employees have been kept closely updated on progress and, earlier this year, staff voted to appoint eight representatives from across the whole business onto a Co-owners Forum. From this group, two employee Trustees have been elected to sit on the Ownership Trust.
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