Call to drive out rogue care home operators

Driving out rogue care home operators and giving older people more control over services should be a top priority for local government, according to the care regulator.

The first major rating by the Care Quality Commission of services for vulnerable adults called for a new drive to eliminate poor care.

The audit found councils are improving their ratings overall, however the assessment highlighted concern that a quarter of councils do not offer real choice and control to the public.

Eight councils were deemed to be performing ‘adequately’, delivering only ‘minimum requirements’ for people, and are due to get extra support. They are: Bromley, Peterborough, Poole, Solihull, South Tyneside, Southwark, Surrey and Cornwall.

Southwark’s chief executive, Annie Shepperd, whose council fell from an ‘excellent’ rating, refuted the findings, describing them as ‘flawed’ and ‘inaccurate’.

The CQC found there has been steady improvement in ratings awarded to councils for their adult social care commissioning, with 95% of local authorities in one of the top two categories – performing either “excellently” or “well” – in the year to March 2009.

This compares to 87% of councils in the previous year.

But the CQC warned people should be able to expect help in taking control of their own support, with clear information and advice about support options, risks, costs and funding.

Cynthia Bower, CQC chief executive, said: ‘It’s good to see the steady improvements and this should be recognised. However, I am concerned that many care homes and agencies have more to do to deliver the quality of care expected of them.

‘Those affected should be absolutely clear that we will be very persistent in ensuring they take action in the run up to registration and afterwards, using all the new powers that will be at our disposal.

‘I want to see the regulator and councils working in tandem to drive poor quality care out of the market.’

The report received a broad welcome from across the local government sector.

Cllr David Rogers, chair of the Local Government Association’s community wellbeing board, said: ‘Councils deserve great credit for their continued good work in helping some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

‘The next step is to ensure that all councils provide such excellent services. It is very encouraging to see that almost all of the small minority of councils rated as priority for improvement last year have now moved out of that category.’

Allan Bowman, chair of the Social Care Institute for Excellence, said: ‘Naturally it’s good to see reported improvements, but as the Social Work Task Force has highlighted this week, no one in the sector can afford to be complacent.’

Helga Pile, UNISON national officer for social care, said: ‘It is good to see that more councils are getting a better rating for their adult social care services. But there is clearly work to be done to bring standards of care up to a decent level across the whole country.

‘However, UNISON does not want to see the CQC becoming a cheerleader for the expansion of the private market into home care and care home services. Councils should be providing more services directly for the elderly and vulnerable adults. The move towards privatised care is part of the problem, not the solution, to improving services.’