Should all care homes be under the control of local authorities?

THERE is something intrinsically wrong with dementia care in the private sector and in hospitals. At present, care homes providing both social and nursing care can register with the Care Quality Commission without having formally to show they have the clinical expertise to match the challenges of this complex condition. While research and development have made some significant strides in understanding dementia, the basics of how to care and protect the sufferer have a long way to go. Homes providing dementia care must have both the physical and clinical infrastructure to prove that the frail and vulnerable are in safe hands. The CQC must get its own house in order by appointing inspectors who have sound knowledge of dementia. Much more needs to be done by

government to tackle head-on the enormity of this ‘plague’ that will claim the lives of many more elderly as we live longer. DANNY SHAMTALLY, registered nurse

(mental health), Merstham, Surrey.

I SUSPECT there is correlation between a care home’s success or failure (whether private, run by a charity or a local council) and what it gets in fees. If it has enough to employ and keep good staff, it will do well. If not, corners are cut and mistakes will happen. Many care ‘experts’ have become inspectors rather than work in the care homes, where their skills and experience are needed. Bring that knowledge and experience, the training for which taxpayers paid, back where it’s needed.

SAM COOK, Broadclyst, Exeter.

MY MOTHER has Alzheimer’s and has been resident at Meadow Court, a nursing home near Ilford, East London, for more than eight years. The care she has received has been excellent, but her place there is under threat because of costs, and research shows that moving people with dementia is a risk. Meadow Court was at first managed by the NHS, but the contract moved to Care UK in 2006 when almost all of the beds were contracted for residents who were in receipt of continuing care funding. There are now only 14 residents, their care paid for, but Redbridge Clinical Commissioning Group still has to pay for 34 beds not being used. So Care UK gets money from the NHS for empty beds. This is a disgrace. RUTH GROOM, York.

IF, AS Dr Max Pemberton (Mail) suggests, the NHS could learn from the building trade, the managers of corporate care homes should similarly be taken to task. This might tackle the disgraceful state of affairs that exists with the care of our elderly.

STEPHEN TONG, Pudsey, West Yorkshire.