Many care homes struggle to meet basic health needs, says CQC report

One in four residents in care homes are not asked whether they would like a female or male member of staff to help them use the toilet, according to a Care Quality Commission review.

‘The special review of the provision of health care of those in care homes’ found basic health needs are unmet in some areas and in under forty per cent of homes for older people, those who need an initial continence assessment wait more than two weeks for it.

Only 38 per cent of care home have GPs making routine visits and thirty five per cent of homes reported they had problems getting medicines to residents on time ‘sometimes’

Ten per cent of care homes said they paid for their GP surgeries to visit.

However, inspectors found good practice in areas such as care planning with 77 per cent of homes taking the views of the person into account and 96 per cent of homes identifying the changing healthcare needs of residents through informal or responsive monitoring.

CQC (Care Quality Commission) director of operations Amanda Sherlock said: ‘The small sample size limits our ability to draw national-level conclusions. However, we will be using this review to help us identify problem areas and we’ll be looking at these issues in our upcoming inspection programme looking at dignity and nutrition in 500 care homes.'

‘While we have identified good practice in areas, this review suggests some providers have fallen short of delivering effective care by considering the healthcare needs of residents as a secondary requirement.’

She added: ‘Despite having a disproportionately high level of dependence on health services, this group appear to be more disadvantaged than the rest of the population in accessing these services.’

The British Geriatric Society (BGS) president, Professor Finbarr Martin, welcomed the publication of the report and data.

He said: 'We have analysed it in regard to the provision of NHS services for the 400,000 older residents in care homes in England and we are developing a series of materials and case studies to help commissioners to develop appropriate integrated services.'

‘We recommend that NICE considers the creation of quality standards to support this.’

In the review, the CQC, looked at how older people and people with learning disabilities living in care homes access healthcare services, whether they have choice and control over their healthcare and whether they receive care that is safe and respects their dignity. Inspection teams visited 81 care homes within nine PCT areas, interviewing managers, residents and staff and observing care and examining case files.

They were chosen from areas previously flagged up as at risk of poor performance.

The CQC is holding more thematic inspections later this year including the dignity and nutrition review in the summer.

There are 376,250 older people living in 10,331 care homes in England and 40 per cent of these suffer from dementia.

Professor Finbarr Martin is pictured above