Social Care News

CFW issues mixed response to Regulation & Inspection White Paper

CFW hits at over White Paper plans to re-introduce registration fees

 The possible re-introduction of registration fees proposed in the Welsh Government’s White Paper on the inspection and regulation of social care, published on September 30, has been criticised by Care Forum Wales.

Mario Kreft, CFW’s chair, welcomed the outcomes-based approach set out in the paper – where listening to the people receiving social care in care homes or the community is key.

However he criticised the possible re-introduction of registration fees saying: “Registration fees were scrapped by the Welsh Government 12 years ago we all agreed the inspection regime was generating a bureaucracy that was putting more pressure on the providers and the public purse.

"I would argue that we're now in a worse place than we were when that decision was taken – [then] there was money being pumped into social care and the economy was thriving. Registration fees will not make registration better.”

Mr Kreft added: "You can only build quality into a system, you can't regulate quality into a system.

Read CFW's full response to the Regulation and Inspection White Paper

• CFW issued a statement in response to the publication of the White Paper as follows:

Mario Kreft MBE, Chair of Care Forum Wales, said: "We welcome the broad sweep of the White Paper. We're very pleased that we're looking at an outcomes-based approach where we're listening to the people who are receiving social care in care homes or the community.

"Recent high profile cases have shown that you can't have enough transperancy and Care Forum Wales welcomes the introduction of an annual reporting mechanism. We would qualify that by saying that the detail has yet to worked.

"Nine out of 10 people in Wales receiving care in Wales do so via the public purse and we need to know those services are well provided so that the outcome-based measures can be interpreted in a way that means something to people.

"We all understand the principle that regulation has to be paid for but the difficulty is that we have the perfect storm if registration fees are reintroduced.

"The vast majority of social care is being provided by the independent sector through the public purse either from local government or health boards who all say they are not going to have money for many years to come.

"At the same time, everybody knows the independent sector is being under-funded so if the millions of pounds of extra cost - on a service that's vital to the community -has to be picked up by the provider, there are going to be casualties.

"Registration fees were scrapped by the Welsh Government 12 years ago we all agreed the inspection regime was generating a bureaucracy that was putting more pressure on the providers and the public purse.

"I would argue that we're now in a worse place than we were when that decision was taken - there was money being pumped into social care and the economy was thriving. So why are we looking back?

"Registration fees will not make registration better. However, the link between the regulator and the contract monitor is vital to ensure there no over-regulation and duplication.

"You can only build quality into a system, you can't regulate quality into a system.

"The main concern Care Forum Wales has is that sadly we are a long way from a really joined up where independent providers are fully integrated into policy at a local level through local government and health boards. It's better at national level in a policy sense but what happens at local level is crucial.

"We have double the number of beds in the independent sector in Wales than we have in the NHS , with almost as many of them registered to provide nursing care as we have in the NHS.

"We have to be very careful this legislation doesn't put more pressure on the very services we're going to need in the short to medium term.

"The population of over 85 year olds is going to double in Wales in the next 15 to 15 years so it stands to reason we're going to need to protect these vital community services.

"Much of the regulation will target the buildings that might be seen as being out-dated but the key is how we move from where we are now over the next 10 to 20 years, how that transition is going to be managed.

"Our real concern is that we haven't got the mechanisms at a local and a regional level to really understand the independent sector.

"If we lose these vital community services, we have not got enough money in the system to replace them. To replace the existing assets in Wales it would cost £4 billion and that's just for the people we have and does not take into account the doubling of the over 85s population.

"All of this is against a backdrop of hospital closures and bed reduction - we're talking about care in the community but anybody receiving 15 minute calls at the moment would beg to differ."

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