The health watchdog in England, the Care Quality Commission, has said that care standards for older people are suffering and key standards are being failed in hospitals and care homes because services are under increasing pressure.
In its State of Care Report 2011/12 – based on data from 13,000 inspections – the watchdog noted that more people are suffering from complex issues than ever before and that this had put pressure on health and social services providers.
However the regulator this had resulted in staff becoming increasingly unable to focus on the individual needs of people for whom
they were caring.
Among the most commonly failed areas were the standards relating to
dignity and respect, nutrition, care and welfare and the workforce,
which covers both numbers and skills of staff.
Findings by sector: providers failing key standards
- 22% of the NHS failed on at
least one key standard - 19% of independent healthcare providers failed on at
least one key standard - 28% of social
care service providers failed on at
least one key standard - 12% of dentistry providers failed on at
least one key standard
In the social care sector – where the report looked at care homes, nursing homes and home care – it found the problems were most acute in nursing homes.
UK Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: "While there is much to praise
about the NHS and social care today we still need to do much more to
raise standards of care across the board.
"I’ve made it absolutely clear that quality of care needs to
be valued as highly as the quality of treatment. And that there can be
no hiding place for those providing poor care or sub-standard practice."
Read the BBC report here: www.bbc.co.uk/news/CQC-report
Read the full CQC report here: www.cqc.org.uk/state-care-report-2011/12