More than a quarter of care homes in West Northants rated ‘requires improvement’
But the council has raised concern over the Care Quality Commission's inspection process.
According to a care watchdog, three in ten care homes in West Northants are currently rated ‘requires improvement’. The council has argued that the waiting times between inspections are too long and don’t present an accurate view of all the providers.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and adult social care in England. One of its jobs is to provide ratings and inspection reports for all care homes and social care services.
Out of the 208 care providers inspected in the region, 64 per cent have a ‘good’ rating, 29 per cent ‘require improvement’ and seven per cent have been called ‘outstanding’- only one provider was rated ‘inadequate’. There are also 44 providers currently operating under CQC that haven’t yet had their first inspection.
Concerns were raised at an adult social care scrutiny meeting of West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) on Wednesday (September 11) that the waiting times for inspection are too long and therefore don’t provide an accurate view of providers’ proficiency of care.
On average, it takes three years for the CQC to inspect a provider which WNC said is higher than the time taken in some neighbouring authorities. Homes rated as inadequate and requires improvement are prioritised and re-inspected around two years after the initial visit.
Stuart Lackenby, executive director of people services at WNC, said: “It’s really concerning because CQC is supposed to be the arbiter of what good looks like. When the public go out to identify a home for their loved ones they’ll look at CQC reports which means the information that they’re looking at is not going to be accurate.
“The other bit which is incredibly frustrating is when we do get inspected as an authority they will look at the profile of our local services, and when they see the number that aren’t good or outstanding they’ll have a view as to whether we’re doing our job properly.
“If CQC actually moved quicker and reinspected our providers we’d be sitting here with probably one of the best CQC profiles in our region.”
Assistant director of commissioning and performance, Ashley Leduc, revealed that there are currently more providers rated as ‘requires improvement’ in West Northants than the national average. However, he said that within WNC’s own inspections of its care home market, only one had minor concerns and there were none with serious defaults.
WNC said that, on average, it inspects providers more than once a year and will incorporate weekly or monthly visits to homes if there are concerns.
He added: “We can do the quality work in the background but the inspections have to happen for that to make a material difference.
“One of the problems that we have is that we cannot rely on CQC ratings as the sole or the primary indicator of care quality across West Northamptonshire. The data is not necessarily reflective of what we know our providers are delivering.”
Kate Terroni, CQC’s interim chief executive, said they had committed to increasing the number of inspections so the public “have an up-to-date understanding of quality and providers are able to demonstrate improvement.
“We are working at pace and in consultation with our stakeholders to rebuild that trust and become the strong, credible, and effective regulator of health and care services that the public and providers need and deserve.
“We’re increasing the number of people working in registration and working to improve our current IT systems with involvement from providers and colleagues, so we can improve waiting times and deliver better outcomes for everyone.”