In a report by charity Independent Age, an analysis based on CQC inspections of care homes, found the North West contains seven of the eight worst performing English local authorities on care home quality, with one in three care homes across the region performing poorly.
London was found to be the best performing region with 20.3 per cent of care homes being rated highly by the CQC, the East of England with 20.8 per cent and the South West with 21.1 per cent.
Simon Bottery, director of policy at Independent Age, believes the reasons for the poor-quality homes are a lack of funding, as well as low pay, difficulty in recruiting staff and the lack of a good support mechanism for improving care homes that are struggling.
In response to the report, Martin Green, chief executive of Care England, said: –
“This is a frightening situation for older people and their families who above all want their loved one to be somewhere caring and safe – and this really shouldn’t be too much to ask in an advanced economy in the twenty first century.
“In the worst affected areas the social care infrastructure is now so threadbare that there’s a real risk of vulnerable older people and their desperate relatives waiting endlessly for a good and affordable local care home place that no longer exists.”
Independent Age wants the Government to tackle variation in care home quality in its forthcoming Green Paper on social care.
