Care homes
More than 500,000 people are looked after in care homes
The government has announced it is pushing ahead with a review of care home standards.
Ministers promised the National Minimum Standards would be assessed within three years when they came into force in April 2002.
Stakeholder Response: Age Concern
Gordon Lishman, Age Concern's director-general, said: "The announcement to review care home standards is an opportunity to ensure that safeguards for older care home residents are improved. It must not be used to further dilute existing standards and regulations.
"The current standards for homes for older people must be brought up to the same
level as those for younger adults.
"All residents should have the opportunity to make real choices about the care they receive, choices that support their basic right to privacy and dignity.
"Regulation has to be about more than just maintaining the safety of older people - it
should guarantee all care home residents are treated with the respect they deserve.
"The government must seize the opportunity to improve the quality of care for older people across the board."
Stakeholder Response: Disabilities Trust
A spokesman for the Disabilities Trust said: "The announcement by Stephen Ladyman of a review into the operation of National Care Standards is to be welcomed.
"The Trust has always backed the government's strategy of comprehensive standards of care ensuring that all service users are guaranteed a certain minimum level of provision under the law.
"As a progressive service provider and one that strives to ensure the highest quality in all our services, both residential and community-based, we ourselves have not encountered any significant problems in meeting the standards.
"There have however been examples of how the standards and the way they can be interpreted by inspectors, have caused problems for service providers.
"This was particularly true of, for example, the physical standards requiring a specific amount of space per room etc.
"While the government are right to be concerned to ensure that service users have adequate personal space within a residential environment, it did need to be recognised (and the government did) that excessive rigidity in applying such standards can be a real problem especially for smaller, independent providers with all the potential extra costs that are involved.
"And while the problems over physical standards have been addressed, there are still legitimate concerns over excessive bureaucracy within the National Care Standards.
"This review is therefore timely, especially as there are worries about the availability and choice of residential provision because of care home closures."
Stakeholder Response: Commission for Social Care Inspection
Dan Murphy parliamentary and public affairs manager at the CSCI said: "The government’s consultation on the National Minimum Standards is welcome. As the single inspectorate for social care services in
"The review of National Minimum Standards will be a part of those discussions
"The Commission is about to consult on how to modernise regulation; looking at regulations affecting care homes.
"Alongside the government’s own review of the National Minimum Standards this is an opportunity to reshape services in order to deliver improved services for the people who use them. "
Dame Denise Platt, chair of the Commission speaking earlier this week said: "We agree with many of the criticisms that have been made about the present arrangements.
"The weakness is that the current regulatory and inspection system pays insufficient attention to what people want from their services, and doesn’t provide us with a sufficiently comprehensive view of how people are experiencing them”
"There is a heavy reliance on the detail of the National Minimum Standards with too little focus on outcomes for people; an over emphasis on paperwork and not enough listening to the people using the service. Additionally, the National Minimum Standards don’t allow us to differentiate between excellent, good, average and poor services.
"In short it focuses on the wrong things – we intend to address this."
Stakeholder Response: Leonard Cheshire
A spokesperson for the charity said: "There are currently 43 standards with arguably equal status. However, a few of these really have much greater significance than the rest when considering their impact on service users' lives. These need to have greater emphasis placed on them and this needs to be reflected in the Inspection and other assessment processes. Leonard Cheshire believe this is the intention of CSCI and therefore look forward to the outcome of the review and possibly the opportunity to contribute to it."
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