Care Homes: Evicted Residents

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for raising this issue. I am sure he will recognise, from when we have worked together on a problem, that the first question I ask officials is: what is the problem and what are we doing about it? When I asked this question, I found that my colleague Gillian Keegan, Minister for Care and Mental Health, has met relatives and residents’ associations to hear directly about their experiences and focus on how we could strengthen the CQC role. In addition, in the Living with Covid-19 strategy, we are reviewing a range of measures in place for homes, including visitor restrictions. The updated position will be set out in guidance by 1 April. We are encouraging representatives, patients and patients’ groups to come forward and feed into that.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my role as chair of the National Mental Capacity Forum. There are many people with impaired capacity in care homes, whose mental state is deteriorating through lack of stimulation, inability to be taken outside and lack of general overall mental activities. Does the CQC have any idea of the number of people with impaired capacity still subject to restricted visiting by their relatives?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Baroness has identified a potential issue that we have to address, which is drilling down into detail. One of the things that the CQC does is to look at aggregate numbers of complaints and concerns. Of course, there is a Local Government Ombudsman who looks at this issue as well. We are looking at ways where that works and where it does not work, and at how we could improve the system. This is all part of the ongoing review to build up a better, integrated health and care system.