Privatisation Of Home Care Will ‘Lead To A Drop In Standards’

Fears were raised today that the standard of care for Norfolk’s elderly and disabled will suffer after it was decided to privatise home care. Councillors at Norfolk County Council unanimously agreed to hand the majority of home care support to the private sector over the next seven years.

But unions, MPs and families today said the move was simply cost-cutting and would lead to a drop in standards because the private sector would not be able to recruit and keep the staff needed to deliver what was needed.

Norfolk County Council spends £33m a year on home support for about 6,000 people every week – with half of the work carried out by the independent sector. However, by 2014 the council plans to put 80pc of support into the hands of private companies, with the remaining in-house care focusing on intensive short-term support to enable people to regain their mobility.

The move is designed to cope with a 12pc increase in people needing help by 2012. This number is expected to further increase over the coming decades. The council says it wants to maintain the level of service while easing pressure on the public purse.

But Jonathan Dunning, Unison spokesman at County Hall, said Unison had wanted the status quo of 50pc of home care services being provided by the council to remain. He said: “We have got concerns about the ability of the private sector to recruit and retain enough staff to deliver 50pc more than they are delivering at the moment.

“The reason is that the pay rates are very low. Norfolk County Council is struggling to recruit and retain staff and it is on their own pay scales, which includes a decent pension.” He said the fear was that the users would not receive adequate support and the council was simply trying to save money rather than improve services.

He added: “The danger is that if you get someone to do your work for you it may not be done to the same standards and you don’t have the same control of standards. This is a high risk strategy especially when we are talking about providing care to the most vulnerable.”

Maran McKay, Labour councillor and its spokeswoman on the Adult Social Services Review Panel said: “I think it would have been better to have waited until we could properly assess the impact that this was going to have on the quality and provision of services. I do know that this issue is of great concern to people. They are far more in favour of in-house home care than the whole resource being out-sourced by the council and this decision does not reflect that.”

When watchdog the Commission for Social Work Inspectorate met last Thursday it voiced concerns over Suffolk County Council’s decision to privatise a large proportion of their home care schemes, which had already resulted in declining standards of care.

Norwich North MP Dr Ian Gibson said: “I think this is a terrible decision and we will live to regret it. It is a knee-jerk reaction to a major problem which needs to be looked at in depth on a local and a national level. This is going to impact massively on society’s most vulnerable and will see families and elderly people footing the bill of the increasing costs of care.”

Caroline Fairless-Price, a disabled woman who benefits from the council’s existing support in the home scheme, said the move would leave her at the mercy of “poorly trained carers” who could cause her “pain and exhaustion”.

Speaking at yesterday’s cabinet meeting where the final decision was made Ms Fairless-Price, from Cringleford, near Norwich, said: “Why are you dismantling the care that meets my needs? I’ve no confidence that the private sector can be brought up to the required standard.”

People receiving long-term care such as the elderly, those suffering from dementia or in receipt of palliative care will in the future see those services provided by the private sector.

Chris Mowle, cabinet member for adult social services, said: “The proposals to introduce the new model of home support, and other developments in hand, will provide us with the opportunity to better ensure that all services provided by, or on behalf of the council, reach the right standard.”

He said the gradual handover would “minimise disruption” for service users, and added that all providers were subject to Commission for Social Care Inspectorate regulations and inspections – which would “ensure the same standards are applied and worked towards by all”.

Harold Bodmer, director of adult social services at Norfolk County Council, said there would be no change in the quality of care and it would take five to seven years for it to be introduced.

Two weeks ago the Evening News highlighted concerns over long-term care for the elderly, with critics arguing not enough was being done to plan for the future with the county’s elderly population set to soar.