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The Relatives & Residents Association exists for older people needing, or living in, residential care and the families and friends left behind at home.
9 April 2013
Care Home Residents Sent to A&E Alone
Chair of R&RA, Judy Downey, comments on today's article in the Guardian newspaper which states that care homes are increasingly leaving residents with dementia on their own in hospital. According to research by the Alzheimer Society 80% of all care-home residents are confused about why they are there, with no one to advocate for them, get them a cup of tea or take them to the loo.
...People are in care homes because they need personal care,
and looking after them when they go to hospital is an intrinsic part of the duty of care...
Read full Guardian article here
22 March 2013
Nuffield Publishes its Report on Ratings
The Nuffield Trust published its report on ratings: 'Ratings providers for quality: a policy worth pursuing?
This report was commissioned by the Secretary of State to consider whether 'Ofsted-style' performance ratings should be provided for hospitals, general practices, care homes and other adult social care providers.
Their report suggested that such a system might be more useful for care homes but needed to be based on a range of indicators. They concluded that: "A rating by itself is unlikely to be useful in spotting lapses in the quality of care, particularly for services within complex providers". Its recommendations were balanced by a number of caveats.
...without a proper trained and supported inspector workforce,
with appropriate expertise and regular, preferably twice yearly, inspections
the reports would continue to lack consistency, credibility and reliability...
Read R&RA's full response here
Further information on Nuffield Trust here
