Older People's Commissioner team to make unannounced visits to hundred Welsh care homes

The Older People’s Commissioner for Wales has launched her Residential Care Review into the quality of life and care of older people living in care homes in Wales.

As part of the Review, the Commissioner and her team will make unannounced visits to around 100 residential homes across Wales, meeting with older people to hear directly from them about their experiences, and gathering further evidence directly from residential care providers, social care staff and public bodies.

The Commissioner will be reviewing whether older people living in residential care have a good quality of life by looking at factors such as physical and psychological health, social relationships, the care home environment and spirituality.

Ms Rochira said: “The voices of older people, as well as those who care for and care about them, are at the heart of my work as Commissioner, which is why I want to hear about their experiences of residential care.

“I have travelled extensively across Wales, meeting with many older people living in residential care and have seen for myself the positive impact that high quality care can have on people’s lives. However, I have also received an increasing amount of correspondence in the past year about the quality of life and care of older people living in residential care and I have spoken publicly about what I consider to be unacceptable variations across Wales.”

She added: “My review will highlight the best of care, but it will also clearly illustrate the impact that poor quality of life and care has upon the lives of older people.”

The Review is being carried out using the Commissioner’s statutory powers, under Section 3 of the Commissioner for Older People (Wales) Act. This allows the Commissioner to Review the way in which the interests of older people are safeguarded and promoted when public bodies discharge their functions.

However Care Forum Wales expressed its disappointment that the Older People's Commissioner in Wales will not have a ‘provider expert’ on her official Advisory Panel.

The organisation, which represents 500 providers in Wales, would also like the impact of chronic underfunding on the sector to be looked at.

Mario Kreft, chair of Care Forum Wales, said: “Care Forum Wales is dedicated to developing and promoting best practice in social care and the timing of this review could not be better given the Social Services Bill and the new White Paper on Regulation. We support the overall aims of the Review and its stated methodology.

“Our disappointment however - which will be shared by many providers - is that the Commissioner has not included a provider expert on the main Advisory Panel. As far as we can see, no-one who has lived in, worked in, managed or owned a care home is represented on the Panel. In our view, this misses the opportunity for partnership working and to engage the sector fully into the Advisory Panel.

“We had hoped that the more enlightened approach of fully involving the sector would have been taken and it appears counter-intuitive to exclude that expertise from the discussions.

“We have seen this type of review many times before and we sincerely hope that this will be different although the sector will be reserving its judgement until the publication of the report.

“The more enlightened approach would be to build in the many positives while at the same time applying the principle of that old Welsh adage that something is not good if it can be made better.”