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Andrea Sutcliffe renews battle against ‘truly awful care’

Andrea Sutcliffe renews battle against ‘truly awful care’

Too many people are ‘putting up with awful care’, the CQC’s Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care, Andrea Sutcliffe has warned.

Talking to The Sunday Telegraph , Ms Sutcliffe said: “week in, week out our inspectors discover some truly awful care which should not be happening.”

She drew attention to the “shocking lack of respect for people’s dignity” in some facilities, giving examples of people neglected to the point of life-threatening dehydration and older people who are treated roughly and left with unexplained bruises.

As the Care Quality Commission (CQC) prepares to launch a new system of inspection, Ms Sutcliffe said her first priority is to get services to improve. If providers fail to do so, the CQC will use its “powers to force change or take action that will lead to services closing”.

Ms Sutcliffe said: “Some may think this is a tough message and that I am being too hard on people who are trying their best in difficult circumstances. But good providers have nothing to fear. And providers who do the right thing to turn services around have nothing to fear.

“But people who are running services who don’t care, who don’t put people first, who don’t sort out the problems we find – they should know that we are determined to act. I want all services to be the best they can be. If they’re not, they won’t survive.”

The CQC has set out what Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement and Inadequate Adult Social Care would look like across each of the key areas it will routinely inspect services against. These guidelines are available on the CQC website here.

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