Residential care homes outperform nursing homes

People living in nursing homes tend to receive much poorer care than those living in residential care homes, says a new report from the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

State of Care gives CQC’s perspective on the state of health and adult social care in England in 2013/14. It offers a view of the sector across more than 40,000 health and care services.

In the report, the CQC highlights that its inspections over the past year have found frontline staff delivering excellent care. However, it says the variation in the quality and safety of care is ‘too wide and unacceptable’.  

Out of the inspected services, social care organisations received the highest number of warning notices (1,149). NHS healthcare organisations followed, with 71 notices being issued to these services.

The CQC also found that the care provided by care homes with a registered manager in place was substantially better than in homes that had not had a registered manager for six months or more.

David Behan, Chief Executive of CQC, said: “Understanding the quality of care is complex – it is about how people experience services, it is about the outcomes of the services and about how safe they are. Quality and safety is underpinned and influenced by the quality of the leadership and the culture that the leadership creates within a provider. We have found in our new more rigorous inspections that being well-led promotes quality and safety overall.”

Among areas for improvement in the social care sector, the CQC identifies the need to encourage more nurses to work in care homes. In 2013/14, one in five nursing homes did not have enough staff on duty to ensure residents received good, safe care.

David Behan added: “While we will celebrate good and outstanding care where we find it, we are calling time on unacceptable inadequate care. When our inspections identify poor care, they must lead to improvement by providers, who should learn from the good and outstanding care we champion through our new ratings.

“We acknowledge the rising pressure on care services. Financial pressures are real but not unexpected, and yet we continue to see many examples of good and outstanding care even in financially challenged organisations.

“From our inspections, the safety of services is our biggest concern. Care providers must make the basics of safe care a priority and build a culture of safety in their organisations, learning from the best. The principle of keeping people safe from harm is fundamental.”