Care Home News

The Care Quality Commission has released a new document ‘working together to prevent and control infections’ which aims to prevent the cross spread of infection between hospitals and care homes.  The report suggests that improvements are needed through the chain of responsabilities between hospital and home, including better discharge information, inclusion of ambulance crews and [...]

New research from Laing & Buisson consultancy indicates a turning point has been reached after a 15 year decline in demand for care home places.  Demand is expected to increase dramaticaly in coming years, at a time when the public sector finances are under pressure and cuts are likely across social care. The proportion of [...]

A lawyer who worked to prevent the closure of local authority care homes has been cleared of bringing her proffession into disrepute.  Yvonne Cossack challenged home closures on the grounds that this would cause unreasonable distress to residents, claiming that in many cases this would have lead to early deaths. She was accused of breaching [...]

The Department of Health is consulting on new guidance which required change due to provisions of the Health and Social Care act and setting up of the Care Quality Commission. The proposed changes impact care homes by changing the criteria that will be used by CQC to assess the ‘cleanliness and infection control’ through the [...]

The question of when the NHS should pay for Nursing home costs has been further clarified in a groundbreaking case.  Long term care in Nursing Homes will increasingly be paid for by the NHS after a recent case in Wirral.  It is estimated that around 100k people are currently paying for care that should be [...]

CQC is working toward a news set of registration standards that will apply to all regulated health and adult social care providers from 2010. There is one week left on this vital consultation

The Department of Health website has an excellent section about swine flu, including weekly updates.  This provides news on policy changes as the epidemic progresses.   The latest update (13th August) includes advice on which groups are a priority for the vaccines, which covers almost 11 million people.  This does not include healthy over 65’s who [...]

The Metropolitan police report that a care home nurse is the first to have been sentenced under the Mental Capacity Act.  The nurse was found guilty of taking a photograph of a partialy closed 92 year old woman, in contravention of section 44 of the 2005 act.

In the first of a series of links to key websites of interest to the care home sector, comes this UK government website.  The site provides the public facing / general audience focus for the consultation on the Green paper ‘Shaping the Future of Care Together’ and includes a video setting out the key issues.

The Panorama journalist, Arifa Farooq who conducted an undercover investigation of the care home system aired earlier this year is reported to have been arrested.

The carehome company, Four Seasons Healthcare is reported to be close to an agreement with key investors to halve it’s £1.5bn of debt.  The group got into difficulties over it’s property backed financing, which turned sour as property prices fell.

The new points based system for awarding work visas was raised by the National Care Association in evidence to the Home Affairs committee, in response to their report ‘Managing Migration’. The NCA believes that certain overseas nursing qualifications have not been adequately recognised under the system, though this is now being addressed.

With the poor state of public finances, politicians are having to decide whether to stand by previous commitments or bin them.  Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrats Treasurey Spokesman has announced they are abandoning the previous pledge to provide free care for the elderly.

The guardian reports that staff at a secure young persons care home (Orchard Lodge, Annerly in London) are occupying the entire site after being made redundant.  The 45 employees were reported to having been dismissed and asked to leave the building in 2 hours. They are preventing security staff from shuttering the building.  The home [...]

Oxfam has published a report assessing the effectiveness of the ‘Gangmasters Licensing Authority’, the body set up in 2004 after the death of 23 Chinese cockle pickers in Morcame.  The report looks at other areas of exploitative employment practices and makes particular comment on the care sector, which often employs staff from overseas on low [...]

A new report from the Work and Pensions Select Committe has called for an increase to the expenses allowance (PEA) that are recieved by care home residents. The increase, to £40 / week (from £21.90) would apply to elderly residents with less than £23k in savings. According to Age Concern, ministers previously reneged on a [...]

Although provided as background for the bestcarehome.co.uk website, this article offers wider food for thought.  The argument is presented that the care home market does not function as well as it should due to the poor information available to buyers of these services.  If better information were available, choosing a care home would be easier, [...]

The department of health recently launched the consultation into the Green paper on the future of care ‘Shaping the future of care together’.
The consultation process lasts from 14th July 2009 to 13th November and it is vital that key stakeholder organisations take part.

Many organisations have now published comments or responses to the government green paper ‘The Future of Care’, providing a useful overview of the issues and challenges these proposals create.  The changes proposed will affect almost everyone in care related services, from residential care homes to meals on wheels.

Chefs at two care homes have been honoured with an award after a ‘cook off’ judged by broadcaster Angela Rippon.  The even, organised by Anchor Trust, aims to highlight the importance of catering within care homes.

This excellent article from Community Care provides detailed advice for care home owners on how to minimise the spread of swine flu.  They make the point that existing best practice around infection control is equaly applicable to swine flu.  Given that we might have 100,000 new infections per day by the end of August, homes [...]

Community Care Magazine has brought together heavyweights of social policy to comment on the adult social care green paper – Shaping the future of Care Together.
Read the full articles on CommunityCare

A great deal of press attention has been given to the spread of infections within hospitals, though residents in care homes are also vulnerable.  This news article is about a care home, Warrior Park Care Home, in Seaton Carew that completed a year long development project aimed at reducing the transmission of infections.

Another care home fataility is examined by an inquest, leading to a suspension of new placements at the care home, Avondale Care Home, Bircotes.  The inquest concluded that failure to follow home protocols in the use of a hoist, led to the accident which contributed to her death.

An inquest has been taking place into the death of a man in a Norfolk care home.  He was recieving palliative care and a verdict of natural causes was recorded. Concerns had been raised in part because of previously raised concerns about record keeping at the home.