Care home providers urged to join forces and be 'radical'

An academic has called on care home providers to be ‘radical’ and join forces in an alliance to tackle the social care crisis.

Dr Clive Bowman, professor at City University and a former director of Bupa, spoke at the Care England conference saying perceptions of care homes need to change.

“We need to revisit the purpose of care homes and we need to get this embedded into the common psyche.”

He claims that care homes now fill a plethora of purposes and are very different to when they were first set up as they now offer a housing solution, long term care, dementia care, intermediate care and end of life care.

“The Government has been feckless at reacting to the whole social care crisis. What they don’t always get into their minds is there are four times the number of care home beds than hospital beds.

“We need standardised operating procedures. We need a sustainable executive agency rather than a boom and bust culture for care homes. There is no consolidated intelligence for policy makers to move forward,” he said.

Dr Bowman would also like to see jobs in the care sector being made more attractive as he said: “We need to get people out of other jobs and working in the care sector”.

The number of reports warning of an impending collapse in the social care system unless the Government takes action, have increased of late from charities and think tanks such as ResPublica and the Resolution Foundation.

Dr Bowman challenged the care sector to be forceful saying: “What about Care England pulling people together and saying to the Government what are you going to do?

“There is an opportunity to be radical.”

Ian Smith, chairman of Four Seasons, the UK's largest care home provider, also spoke at the Care England conference. To read the news story on his speech go to www.carehome.co.uk/news/article.cfm/id/1572315/four-seasons-boss-embarrassed-british