Wes Streeting Declares CQC "Not Fit For Purpose"

So, Mr Streeting, what are you going to do about it?
It’s not enough to identify the inadequacies, you need to address them.
A good start might be to regulate the massive profits which must be being made by somebody given the disparity between care home fees - huge- Care assistant wages- often minimum wage and staffing levels.

Oh RosiesMaw I do share your frustration in the matter of poorly paid workers making significant profits for the owners of care homes. Is it possible for the government to regulate this? I don't know how much they can do.

What is the evidence that all care homes are making huge profits? Certainly some are, but many aren't and just before COVID 2 big groups went bankrupt.

The problem is that in accounting terms, profits are often declared gross - before deducting all operating costs, organisation and admin, plus any interest they pay on loans and mortgages and that makes profits seem much larger than they are.

I suspect people think Care Homes are making huge profits because they charge huge fees, and it is often repeated that they do make huge profits. I haven’t studied any care homes accounts, and consequently I have no idea whether they make huge profits or not. I just hear the accusation that they do.

I haven't a clue what he's going to do about the CQC, but how can it be anything other than useless when my GP practice receives an overall "good" rating from CQC, but only 61% of patients have a good overall experience of the GP practice and a mere 49% have a good experience of contacting the practice according to a survey by Healthwatch. They don't even have the highest number of patients in the area per FT doctor, although other practices have achieved a higher approval rating.

It appears CQC don't even take into account the patients' actual experience.

At one GP practice which was awarded 'Good' the CQC interviewed only 4 patients. No idea how they were selected.

If you're interested, this is from the uk. gov. website. Published today:

www.gov.uk/government/news/government-acts-after-report-highlights-failings-at-regulator

We have history, it seems, of supposedly independent regulators failing at their jobs. Ofwat being another noticeable example...

Why am I not surprised? I think most of us just accept it these days because we know that there’s nothing we can do about it.

We have history, it seems, of supposedly independent regulators failing at their jobs. Ofwat being another noticeable example

Agreed MaizieD:

Ofsted; Ofgem; Ofwat - all not fit for purpose. Then the Ombudsman process - a lengthy, probably expensive system that can make recommendations which are simply ignored by the powers that be, e.g WASPI!

I’m struggling to think of a so-called ‘regulator’ that is fit for purpose.

Bit of manoeuvring from the last government to the new one? Ball in Labour’s court. I must say that Labour has shown no interest in this aspect of care until gifted it to them….. or have I misunderstood?

Anyone who worked for the NHS would have said that the CQC was not fit for purpose - even when it was working 'well'.

And, when we looked at Care Homes for my mum, their reports were hopeless.

We read - or anyway I have - reports of owners of groups of care homes enjoying lavish lifestyles thanks to their profits.
Some are owned by not-for-profit organisations which seems a better model.
I suppose there is a benchmark figure of what a week’s good care should cost - decent room and food, adequate staffing at appropriate levels etc - in different parts of the country. Providers ought to be asked to justify charges of more than a certain per cent above that.

I think you have to bear in mind that it is not in the interest of a small state government to have had a fully functioning inspectorate which published detailed reports identifying failing organisations.

Precisely Casdon

I could have told Mr Streeting about CQC, without him having to waste thousands of pounds on an expert evaluation. Their visits to establishments are purely a tick box exercise. I used to work for a care agency. It received a rating of "poor" because their filing system did not meet their standards. The quality of care provided by the dedicated carers was not examined.

Three carers were invited to be interviewed (not long standing employees but just those who happened to be in the office at the time!). When any issue was raised by a carer, the CQC rep did not want to know, as it did not fit into the box. Absolutely useless but and the BIG BUT is that people look at the CQC ratings for guidance. Their rating can make or break a company/business.

It needs to be binned and restarted from scratch and at least run by people who have experience and by people who know what they are doing and talking about.

My Mum’s care home closed down a while after she died. I bumped into one of the nurses that used to work there and was told that the exorbitant cost of agency nurses made the home bankrupt.

Bottom Line (NET profits after taxation)profits of these companies should be available via accounts filed at Companies House.
I don't know if a summary of the main operators net profits is available anywhere on the internet ?
Probably........

Winterwhite
I lived opposite a family who owned care homes.
In about 2012 my son in law sold 3 cars to the family, cost for the 3 cars £360,000.
It maybe would have been ok if the residents had been living in lovely surroundings and conditions but the truth was, they weren’t.
In fact I reported them.

It is the problem with the whole tick box, count it, measure it, target setting attitude.

Some years ago I had to use an International standard for quality control for amrket reaearch reports I commissioned. A report could provide the quality form with every box ticked for the processes that were gone through to commission the report, write the questionnaires, select the sample, etc etc. What they could not do is ensure that the actual creative work; the questionnaires themselves and the analysis and final report were any good. Onoy that the obeyed and carefully followed the rules for the process - and the final paperwork file of everything was impeccable.

Now that Labour has deferred Dilnot's social care cap I'm beginning to think Wes Streeting is not fit for purpose.

The Health Ombudsman made significant staffing cuts last March (I think March) too.

Wes Streeting is also not building hospitals but rather a different type of local facility if the Labour manifesto is to be believed. Change is ahead.

I’m getting fed up of saying this. The 40 hospitals schemes have been postponed, not shelved. There is concern about whether funding had in fact been allocated by the Tory government.

You have read the manifesto Casdon? It makes perfect sense to stop building hospitals if smaller more local medical centres are the preferred model. Well Labour’s preferred model.