East Sussex and Brighton & Hove: meeting with providers

On Friday Nadra and I attended a meeting at Hailsham in East Sussex with the East Sussex and Brighton and Hove Care Homes Association.

The members of the Association attending the meeting were providers of care to younger adults with either Learning Disabilities, Physical Disabilities or Mental Illness.

Homes providing these services around the country are facing many challenges and we agreed a plan of actions we are going to take to raise public awareness of the issues.

Press Release: National Care Association’s Cautious Response to the Secretary of State for Health’s Statement on the Social Care White Paper and on Social Care Spending Reform

Below is a link to the Press Release issued by us yesterday.

Press Statement

National Care Association Voices Concerns about CQC's Recently Published First Market Report

Press Release issued 2nd July 2012


National Care Association has called on the Care Quality Commission to curtail the practice of consistently highlighting and publishing failures that they identify in the provision of health and social care. Care Quality Commission is the Regulator and we as representatives of responsible providers of care expect the Care Quality Commission to concentrate their energy and resources making sure that the public can have confidence in social care provision because they (CQC) have ensured that providers are compliant. We do not expect them to publish this sort of report that just frightens the public.

National Care Association Chairman Nadra Ahmed OBE said today: “The public rightly expect that if there is a regulator that it will ensure that essential standards are met by all registered providers of care.

Responsible providers of care expect the regulator to tell us how they are ensuring that essential standards are attained by all providers. They pay large amounts of money to be regulated by the Care Quality Commission and they expect the regulator to carry out those responsibilities instead of seeking headlines in the press.

We are, quite frankly, fed up of hearing how they have consistently failed to regulate the sector appropriately and thus failed to protect service users. We do not want to hear that they are failing to ensure that these standards are met, we want to hear that they have fulfilled their roles as regulators!

Our members are paying significant amounts of money to be regulated; many want to know what they are paying for if they as it appears in this report are failing to ensure that all providers are compliant.”

Long-term Care and Government Funding

One of this morning’s Daily Telegraph front page headlines is “Care Funding Crisis on Back Burner” and of course is referring to yesterday’s Queen’s Speech.

It’s true it is on the back burner and of course as a problem for the Government the funding of long term care must look like a bottomless pit.

I would like us to start a debate amongst ourselves about what might be done to help to alleviate this particular financial challenge.

My thoughts are many and mixed and might be a starting point for our discussions.

How can any Government make decisions when they do not appear to know the real cost of the provision of care i.e.

• We know what it costs by area to keep a person in a care home if they are funded by the State.

• Do we know what it costs for a person to live and receive care at home? (when I say this I mean all the costs including housing benefits etc)

Has the Government looked at other Countries models?

Do we know anything about models that seem to work?

Does the Government need to make plans to address:

• The short term

• The medium term

• The long term

I would be really pleased to hear from anyone interested in this and if we manage to generate enough debate and good ideas we will prepare a paper which we will send to the government and circulate widely.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sheila

You are welcome to email me privately at my office address: info@nationalcareassociation.org.uk

Panorama (BBC1): 23rd April 2012

We know how disturbing many of our members found the Panorama broadcast on Monday evening. Yesterday we issued the following Press Release, which we have distributed widely and also placed on our website.

http://www.nationalcareassociation.org.uk/story_detail.asp?story=news&id=859

Excellent meeting yesterday at CQC with Alan Rosenbach the Special Policy Adviser to Cynthia Bower.

The day before at our seminar in Norwich we had asked the delegates what points they would like us to raise and they will be pleased to know I raised them all including the iguana!

The specific points I raised were:

·         Concern that if a new home or extension is being constructed CQC pays its first visit when the work is completed so if there is problem a great deal of money can be involved in making changes

·         Concerns about the impact of the regulatory fees in March 2011

·         Impact of the pressures on public funding and what that means for the care sector

·         CRB checks for young people having work experience as part of the youth contract

.............amongst other points

When I get specific responses to the some of the points I raised you will be the first to know!

I do hope you all have a peaceful Easter weekend.

 

Annual Conference And Exhibition 2012

We are delighted to announce that our Annual Conference and Exhibition this year will be held at Shendish Manor Hotel.


We are having a one day Conference and now we have the venue confirmed, along with the date of 23rd October, we have begun work on the programme.

Care Sector Forum: Portugal

I spent the weekend in Portugal at an Exhibition. Nadra and I were there to run a seminar. It was a great event, lots of good contacts and we were able to share news not only with providers of care but also to suppliers to the Care Sector.

Well done to DP Events and all their staff for another successful event.

National Care Association Responds to the News that the Care Quality Commission’s Chief Executive Cynthia Bower will resign from her post during 2012

The Press Release issued yesterday by National Care Association:

National Care Association Chief Executive Sheila Scott said this afternoon: “Members of National Care Association recognise the contribution that Cynthia Bower has made to the development of the Care Quality Commission during the last four years and wish her well.


We believe that with the publication today of the Department of Health report on the performance and capability review of the Care Quality Commission that this is the moment for a new start for the Care Quality Commission as there is clearly much still to do.”

ENDS

News update

I was surprised to read this on the Financial Times website yesterday. I would be interested to know what you think.
Sheila

8 Feb 2012 2:50am

Four Seasons races to refinance £780m in debt
Kate Mackenzie

Four Seasons, the UK’s largest care-home operator, will seek to raise up to £230m in new equity from existing shareholders and private equity groups, as it tries to refinance £780m in debt before a September deadline, reports the FT. The company became the UK’s market leader after the collapse last year of Southern Cross, taking 140 homes from its defunct rival. Unlike Southern Cross, Four Seasons owns most of its homes, which means it is less vulnerable to rent increases and pressure on fees. However, a similarly aggressive expansion strategy before the financial crisis left it burdened with debt of £1.6bn, which was halved in 2009 through a debt-for-equity swap. The reduced net debt of £780m, which falls due in September, is still too much to refinance in the current weak debt market, said Pete Calveley, Four Seasons’ chief executive. Although the company intends to pay off the existing debt in full and on time, it believes it will be able to raise only a significantly smaller amount of new debt.

Agenda Today

Off to a meeting of the Care Provider Alliance at 11am. First on the agenda, meeting with Department of Health senior official from the Better Regulation Department. I will have a lot to say.

Full report in Update to our members on Friday.

Campaigning: 2012

I spent the day yesterday in Kent with our Chairman Nadra Ahmed planning our campaigning for the first 6 months of 2012.

First stop will be a paper for MPs about the number of organisations that can now inspect or assess care providers and following on from that the number of extra organisations that the Government has announced will also be involved such as Monitor, Health Watch and of course NICE too.

What care homes need right now is clarity, not more and more complexity.

Meeting with Care Providers Alliance & CQC

Yesterday I went to a meeting between the Care Providers Alliance and the Care Quality Commission at their headquarters.

Cynthia Bower the Chief Executive of CQC was there.

As always my blood pressure was raised from time to time and I guess that will continue!

More of that to members in an e mail at the end of the week.

Letter in Daily Telegraph: 3rd January 2012

There is a disappointing letter in today’s Daily Telegraph signed by 72 organisations involved in social care mainly in the voluntary sector.


The letter talks about the threat to the provision of social care unless a concensus can be reached around the funding of long term care.

We believe that one of the biggest threats to the future of social care is the failure to care and support for the care home sector.

Care homes are an essential part of the continuum of care, caring as they do for the frailest and most vulnerable older people.

That failure to support the care home sector in the coming year could cause even more instability to social care than anything else and that instability could put more pressure on the NHS than it could tolerate.

Our message for the New Year to the Government and the 72 organisations that signed today’s letter is “It is imperative that the CARE HOME Sector is recognised as part of the solution to this funding conundrum. Splitting the sector will weaken the impact and fail the frail and elderly population we serve".

Social Care in the News

Despite the holidays, there has been a great deal in the press and on the TV and radio about social care.

Yesterday it was about the government announcement of 150 million new money for domiciliary care - good for domiciliary care, but what about residential care which is suffering very badly too?