Report critical of one in ten elderly care homes

STV

One in ten care homes for the elderly provide unsatisfactory or weak services, according to a new  report on standards.

The Care Commission rated the quality of care provided by adult and children's support services across Scotland in the year up to March 2009.

It also judged nursing agencies, foster care, childminders and offender accommodation.

The Making the Grade? report deemed 80% of all care services across the country as good, very good or excellent.

But one in ten care homes for the elderly achieved poor grades, with the services they provide judged as unsatisfactory or weak.

Just over three per cent of care homes achieved such grades in every category they were judged on, including quality of care, staffing and management.

Housing support and care-at-home services achieved the best results in adult services, with 48% and 46% respectively achieving grades of very good or excellent.

For adult services, the private sector has the highest proportion of services receiving poor grades while the voluntary sector has the highest proportion of services with high grades.

In Fife, 40% of adult services - the highest in the country - were judged as very good or excellent whereas 4.5% of services in Argyll & Bute - the highest proportion - were found to be unsatisfactory or weak.

The majority of children's services achieved good grades, with around 98% judged adequate for their quality of care and support.

One in three childminding services scored highly across every category while 25% of children's daycare services also achieved the top grades.

Ronnie Hill, Care Commission director, said: "The grading system provides people in care and their families with better information - and therefore more choice and involvement - about the standards of care provided at every care service in Scotland.

"It is so important that people who use services and families understand that they can play a major role in insisting on and driving forward improvements in care standards.

"Grading gives everyone 'at a glance' information about whether a service is performing well or not.
"It means that good providers are getting the recognition they deserve and those who need to do better are under intense pressure to improve.

"To get good grades, services have to show that the children and adults who use the services have good outcomes, are well cared for, supported and protected."

Examples of good practice singled out in the report include the Highland Hospice, Harmeny School in Edinburgh and Hilton Lodge Nursing Home in East Lothian.

The Care Commission has the power to take enforcement action and shut down poorly-performing services.

A new body called Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland is being created, which will incorporate the work of the Care Commission and a number of other agencies.

IN DETAIL: