Quarter of care homes are unsafe

Check the smell before you pick a place for your loved ones, warns CQC in damning report

ONE in four elderly care homes is unsafe, a watchdog report says today, as experts warn that choosing one is like “playing Russian roulette”.

Poor leadership and staff shortages mean residents in a quarter of the facilities are going weeks without being cleaned and are served dangerous levels of medication, the first comprehensive audit of the sector has found.

The report, by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), also says that a third of residential nursing homes are failing to provide safe levels of care.

Examples included out-of-date medicine being given to residents, care staff used as stand-in chefs, and managers who could not name a single resident.

Experts last night said the “scary” situation was liable to get worse, while CQC officials advised people selecting a care home for elderly relatives to “check the smell” and “use their instinct” before making a commitment.

“It appears to be increasingly difficult for some providers to deliver the safe, high-quality and compassionate care people deserve and have every right to expect,” said Andrea Sutcliffe, the chief inspector of adult social care at the CQC.

“With the demand for social care expected to rise over the next two decades, this is more worrying than ever.”

Caroline Abrahams, the charity director at Age UK, said: “There is no excuse for poor care. We cannot tolerate it and we should not tolerate it.

“The statistics are frankly pretty scary. You can be lucky, but it’s like playing Russian roulette.”

The CQC began inspecting every registered adult social care provider, including domiciliary care and special needs services, both private and publicly funded, in October 2014. Its report today follows inspections of all 24,000 providers in England. It found that of 10,858 residential care homes it examined, more than 2,600 were rated either inadequate or requiring improvement for safety.

Meanwhile, of the 4,042 residential nursing homes visited by the CQC, 1,496 – or 37 per cent – were unsafe.

Across the entire adult social care sector, including domiciliary and community social care, 23 per cent of services were found to require improvement for safety, and two per cent – approximately 6,000 organisations – were judged to be inadequate.

Twenty-two per cent of services required leadership improvement, while two per cent were branded inadequate.

The report also concludes that 26 per cent of the services initially rated “good” but subsequently re-inspected had deteriorated, a sign that even the top end of the market is in “precarious” shape, according to the CQC. Among

the worst examples were the Meadowbrook Care Home, in Shropshire, where ants were seen crawling over dining tables and soiled mattresses discovered.

Aamina Home Care, a domiciliary care agency in Lincolnshire, was found to deliver six minutes of care for people who required 45, as well as administering medicines unsafely and at the wrong times. One patient needed medicines administered in four-hour gaps, but was given them all at once.

Since 2015, the commission has prosecuted five providers for the most egregious failures – all involving the death or serious injury of a resident, resulting in cumulative fines of more than half a million pounds.

At Mosley Manor Care Home, in Liverpool – one of those prosecuted – some residents had not been bathed for three weeks and there was no soap or hot water in the communal bathrooms.

In February’s Budget, the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, pledged an additional £2 billion for the social care sector over the following three years.

The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services yesterday said more would be needed. However, the new report indicates poor management is also a significant cause of unsafe homes.

The report found that managers often do not properly check the skills and qualifications of staff before hiring them – a problem exacerbated by a high turnover rate and a heavy reliance on temporary agency employees.

Ms Sutcliffe advised people to thoroughly inspect care homes, including smelling the premises and interviewing the registered manager to see how well they know residents and staff.

“Ask yourself, ‘does this feel like a home or an institution?’” she advised.

Nicola O’brien, the head of policy and campaigns at the Alzheimer’s Society, said unsafe care homes were particularly worrying for the relatives and friends of dementia sufferers.

“It is disturbing that safety has been flagged as the biggest concern in care, when providers are caring for some of the most vulnerable adults in society,” she said.

“Too often we hear the consequences of inadequate care – our investigation last year revealed people with dementia left in soiled sheets.”