Care home provider backs report that aims to improve dignity in care homes

Care home provider, Colten Care Ltd, is backing the Delivering Dignity report, designed to tackle the underlying causes of poor care and secure more dignity for older people in care homes and hospitals.

The report produced by the Commission on Improving Dignity in Care for Older People, an independent group set up by the NHS Confederation, Age UK and the Local Government Association (LGA), said a "major cultural shift" is needed.

The report also said the Government should ensure every person receiving care is protected under human rights legislation, rather than only those whose care home place is arranged by their Local Authority.

Colten Care, which runs 19 homes in Hampshire, Dorset and Wiltshire, said the Delivering Dignity report offers a helpful base on which the industry can drive up standards.

Colten Care’s managing director Ian Hudson said: “The report makes a number of key recommendations around professional development of staff, the independent rating of individual care homes and the specialist care of people with dementia. Everyone in the industry should be focused on improving quality and we agree wholeheartedly with the findings and the calls to action.”

Many of the operational recommendations mirrored business-as-usual activities at Colten Care Ltd, according to Mr Hudson. These include fostering person-centred care and giving staff practice-based development programmes, ‘active learning’ strategies and dementia specific education.

The report also calls for a clear, industry-wide rating scheme for care homes, based on forthcoming quality standards to be set by NICE, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence.

Mr Hudson added: “We too have been calling for a straightforward, easy to understand star rating system that would give the public useful information on the assessment of individual homes. We believe this should now be implemented as a matter of urgency.”

Colten Care has been invited to join a strategic review by the care industry regulator, the Care Quality Commission.

Mr Hudson said: “A rating system driven by the industry regulator would not only benefit people choosing care homes for their relatives. It would also help PCTs and social services when they are looking to place residents from the NHS and local authority sectors.”

Image: Colten Care’s managing director Ian Hudson