Care Homes: West Sussex

(asked on 9th June 2014) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he plans to take to implement the recommendations of the Serious Case Review into the private care home sector in West Sussex.


Answered by
Norman Lamb Portrait
Norman Lamb
This question was answered on 12th June 2014

The Department has noted the report of the serious case review into deaths at Orchid View care home. The great majority of the report's recommendations are for local attention and response. However, the Department is taking action to improve the regulation and oversight of care providers and to enhance protection from abuse and neglect.

The Care Act places care and support law into a single statute for the first time and enshrines the principle of individual wellbeing as the driving force behind it. It ensures that people will have clearer information and advice to help them navigate the system, and a more diverse, high quality range of support to choose from to meet their needs.

The Act sets local authorities' responsibility for protecting adults with care and support needs from abuse or neglect in primary legislation. This is vital to ensure clear accountability, roles and responsibilities for helping and protecting adults with care and support needs who are experiencing, or at risk of, abuse or neglect as a result of those needs. Local authorities are given a lead role in coordinating local safeguarding activity.

Following the failure of Southern Cross Healthcare, the Government consulted widely on how to address the issues around the financial failure of large care providers. The Care Act establishes the Care Quality Commission (CQC) as the financial regulator of providers which, because of their size, geographical coverage or specialism, could cause difficulty to local authorities in arranging alternative care in such circumstances.

The CQC will look at the finances of these providers and, where there are significant concerns about financial sustainability, take action to ensure a provider is taking steps to return to financial health. Where that is not possible, the CQC will share all the information it has with relevant local authorities, to help them minimise the negative effects should the provider fail and to ensure a smooth process that provides continuing care to individuals.

The aim of this new regime is not to prop up failing providers, but to provide reassurance and co-ordinate continuity of care for people affected should a care business fail. The CQC is currently working to establish this new function, which will begin in April 2015 and sit alongside its role to oversee the quality of providers. In the meantime, the Department has a team overseeing the finances of the five largest providers.

Significant reform is already underway to ensure the CQC is an effective regulator. Chief Inspectors have been appointed, for hospitals, adult social care, and general practice. The CQC is putting in place specialist inspection teams, headed by the Chief Inspectors, to carry out more in-depth inspections that subject providers to greater scrutiny than before.

Under the leadership of the Chief Inspectors and, after a phase of testing, since April 2014 all acute National Health Service trusts inspections have used the new methodology; the inspection reports from this wave were all published by March 2014, three of which produced a shadow rating. The CQC is completing the second wave of inspections and all 13 of the 19 inspection reports already published have a shadow rating. The CQC also began testing its new inspection model in mental health, community services and NHS general practice out of hours services in January 2014 and in adult social care in April 2014.

Subject to Parliamentary agreement, regulations will introduce new fundamental standards as requirements for registration with the CQC. These will allow the CQC to take robust action against providers that do not deliver an acceptable standard of care. The CQC will produce ratings of the quality of care ranging from ‘outstanding' to ‘inadequate', to provide service users with a fuller picture of the quality of care available. The aim is to introduce both sets of regulations in October 2014.

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