Agenda item

The Board was asked to consider and approve the draft scrutiny report on Quality Assurance of Care and Nursing Homes in Worcestershire.

The Scrutiny was proposed by the Board who wanted reassurance about the effectiveness of the County Council’s quality assurance systems of residential care and nursing homes.

At its meeting on 28 March 2019, the Board agreed the Task Group which was led by Cllr Juliet Brunner, Chairman of the Council’s Adult Care and Well Being Overview and Scrutiny Panel (Adult Panel). The terms of reference for the scrutiny exercise were ‘to investigate how the Council carries out and monitors quality assurance of care homes in Worcestershire’.

Cllr Brunner introduced the Report and in doing so thanked the Members of the Task Group for taking part and Cllr Potter for supporting her at the Board meeting today.

During the discussion, the following main points were made:

·       Paragraphs 23 and 24 seemed contradictory, so it was agreed that they would be re-checked for factual accuracy.

·       In response to a member’s question, Cllr Brunner confirmed that the Cabinet Member with Responsibility (CMR) for Adult Social Care met regularly with care home providers to discuss pricing and quality of care homes.

·       It was suggested that resilience of the care market stood out as an impending issue for the Council and it was agreed that it would be added to the work programme of the Adult Panel to be looked at in future.

·       Assistive Technology was picked up as a positive direction of travel for the Council and Cllr Brunner confirmed that this was something that was definitely a focus for the CMR and the Adult Panel.

·       It was highlighted that during its work, the Task Group had been made aware of the risk of closure of small care homes.

·       One of the consistent themes picked up by the Task Group was that care home managers were unsure what the Council criteria for inspection were and it was felt that it would be helpful to know this in advance of any visit.  When speaking with the Interim Director, members learned that the required standards were set out in the contract with the home. However, as a result of this finding, the Interim Director had instigated a one-off mailing to remind homes of the Council’s expectations. It was also suggested that recommendation 1 should be strengthened further to include displaying the criteria on the Council’s website.  Members of the OSPB requested a copy of the criteria too.

·       It was suggested that with regard to recommendation 5 relating to opportunities for networking and sharing best practice, that anything the Council could do to facilitate and encourage this would be a positive way forward.

·       A Member expressed concern about the lack of high needs dementia beds in the County and suggested that equity and location of provision should be looked at by the Adult Panel.

In summary, it was agreed that subject to the suggestions below being adopted the OSPB endorsed the Scrutiny Report on Quality Assurance of Care and Nursing Homes in Worcestershire and that the Report should be passed to Cabinet for consideration at its meeting on 29 January 2020:

·       Recommendation 1 being amended to include the Council’s criteria on which care homes were inspected being displayed on the Council’s website; and

·       Paragraphs 23 and 24 being re-checked for factual accuracy.