Health inspectors sent into councils to ease care crisis

♦ Care Quality Commission inspectors are to be sent into councils for the first time to improve faltering social care services.

The health watchdog will target town halls that are failing to provide enough care home spaces and community services in an effort to cut bed blocking in NHS hospitals.

The move, announced by Jeremy Hunt in Parliament last night, will be accompanied by the threat of financial sanctions for local authorities which fail to improve.

Until now, the CQC, whose main task is monitoring standards in the NHS, has had the power to inspect care homes and social care providers. But under the measures, inspectors will have the right to scrutinise councils in an effort to tackle one of the root causes of so-called delayed transfers of care. The Department of Health has drawn up a list of 12 local areas where inspections will take place within a month, including Birmingham, Manchester, Oxfordshire and Plymouth.

An inability to discharge patients who no longer need hospital care is one of the principal causes of bed shortages in the NHS. Delayed transfers of care have nearly doubled in the past two years and in February stood at a record high of 2.2 million.

“No one should stay in hospital longer than necessary,” said Mr Hunt.