Paul Burstow MP, the former care services minister in the Brown government, is calling for company directors, chief executives and senior managers to be held to account for poor and failing care homes in their organisations.
There is an increasing spotlight on abuse in health and social care. The Care Quality Commission are under-pressure to show their teeth; the media are constantly on the hunt for a new salacious story. The government need to show that they are doing something about it.
The difference this time is that there is a semblance of cross-party support for this move. Last week Norman Lamb MP, the current incumbent of the Care Services office made similar overtures towards increasing accountability for those at the top.
I have personal experience of life under the stewardship of a venture capitalist-owned care company as a compliance manager. My job took me around over 60 care homes on a regular basis across the south-east. I can tell you that a frighteningly high proportion of those services were not fit for purpose with poor care and were poorly/understaffed. I witnessed abusive practices in homes and attitudes from senior managers citing that if the contract price was right then the placement was right. Home managers earned bonuses for saving money rather than quality outcomes for service users. In one instance I visited a recently purchased, large supported living group, without doubt one of the poorest services I have ever been to. I tore the service to shreds in the internal quality and compliance report and put together a clear action plan for improvement.
I was threatened by a senior manager with disciplinary action, the report findings were ignored despite a show of concerned hand rubbing. Worryingly, CQC visited not a month later and gave the service a completely clean bill of health. Nothing was done. I returned to the service 6 months later and literally nothing had been done. The service had worsened if anything. CQC visited again a matter of days after my inspection and this time placed warning notices on the service.For at least 6 months, but probably a lot longer, vulnerable adults with learning disabilities were subject to abusive practices.The service had been subject to a local social services embargo on admissions and safeguarding alerts for over a year, but again nothing had been done. It seemed that there was a absolute lack of will from the company and social care professionals to make the changes the service users needed.
This is one example of a clear case where there was corporate neglect. True, some of the staff should never have been working in care in the first place, but staff were poorly paid, working up to 70 hours a week with highly challenging clients in a service without any effective day-to-day management. The problems were not just localised to that service, but there were significant systemic failings. My reports were shared with the service manager, the regional manager, the operations director, the head of the specialist services division and the board of one of Europe's largest health and social care provider. Nothing was done.
So who should be held to account? The staff who are abusive and should be frog-marched out of care. Yes. The senior managers who knew exactly what was going on, wrung their hands and then sat on them. Yes. The local authority who were complicit and colluding with neglect. Yes. The board that institutes a culture of penny pinching and blatant disregard for the care of vulnerable people. Most definitely yes.
We have to press for a co-ordinated cross-party plan. There is far too much money being made out the frail, ill and vulnerable, which is highlighted by the fact that big business and money-makers are invading the care sector. The one thing they do know how to do is butter their own bread.
http://www.harriscareconsultancy.com
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