29 September 2010
More than 40 care homes and agencies have closed in the past 12 months following regulatory action by the Care Quality Commission.
Six of the 34 care homes and 8 agencies were closed by the health and social care watchdog because of serious health and welfare risks. These included verbal and psychological abuse of residents, unsafe management of medicines, lack of medical and nursing care and poor sanitary conditions. The remainder shut voluntarily after the CQC took enforcement action.
During the same period another 39 care homes and 12 other care service providers closed voluntarily after being rated ‘poor’ by the regulator.
The figures came ahead of Friday’s roll-out of a new registration scheme for care services. The CQC said the new system would be ‘even tougher on poor care’, with powers for the regulator to issue on the spot fines and warning notices and suspend registration.
CQC chief executive Cynthia Bower said: ‘We did not tolerate poor care under the old registration system and we certainly will not tolerate it under the new system. Services where problems have been identified can expect frequent inspections and we will use our powers where it is necessary to protect people, even if it means shutting services down.’
The new registration system will bring the NHS, private health care and adult social care providers under the same inspection regime and standards for the first time. NHS trusts registered in April. The other categories will join from Friday.
