Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if his Department will research the causes of systemic failure at private care homes run by the same provider.

The Department is working in partnership with local authorities, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and the provider sector to understand the viability of the care home sector as a whole, including any issues that may be affecting a care home provider’s ability to deliver quality services at any of the locations in which it operates.

The Department receives inspection reports of all adult social care providers from the CQC. These reports state publicly why a service may be rated as Inadequate. In addition, the CQC’s annual State of Care report summarises issues across the entire care sector, from which lessons can be and are drawn, including those concerning providers with more than one home.

Since 1 April 2015, any service rated Inadequate by the CQC has been placed in special measures. Such services will have six months to improve. If they fail to do so, their registration may be cancelled and they will exit the market. If they show significant improvement after six months, they will have a further six months to demonstrate that they can maintain that improvement. If they do, they will leave special measures. If they do not, they will exit the market.

People can be confident that there is now a strict time limit under which providers must improve or cease to operate.

The CQC will continue use its full range of enforcement powers, including removing providers immediately from the market if necessary. It will also use the special measures system to help tackle those services which, whilst not being so poor as to warrant immediate closure, have ratings that vary continually between Inadequate and Requires Improvement.