Bad care homes will be named and shamed by Wirral Council under a new draft policy.
The council’s new quality and suspension policy was proposed by councillors at a committee meeting in November after a damning report on the poor standards in care on the Wirral.
Care home quality in Wirral had declined in recent years becoming the worst in the North West with not a single care home rated outstanding by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the government inspector.
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Councillors afterwards called for more transparency on the quality of social care branding the situation a mess and criticised council policy for not being good enough.
Wirral Council currently commissions services for around 1800 people who require 24 hour support and care with the annual cost being more than half of all social care spending.
The new policy will outline how the council will review care homes, compare them with CQC reports, suspend contracts, and publish lists of poor quality care homes it has suspended services too.
According to councillors, this will allow the public to make informed decisions when choosing care homes for their loved ones.
Cllr Yvonne Nolan, chair of Wirral Council’s Adult Social Care and Public Health committee said she was delighted about the proposed policy, adding: “I am so pleased that we are finally going to have some transparency and openness.”
The policy will suspend placing patients in care homes that have been rated “inadequate” by the CQC and will publish that decision on its website.
The suspension will remain in place until the CQC reinspect and the rating improves. The council will then follow up with its own assessment in 90 days. T
Cllr Phil Gilchrist said: “What we want is a system that gives everyone confidence when things are good, well and excellent but is also able to respond when things are not so good.”
He added the policy would “give people absolute confidence that their loved ones are being cared for.”
Cllr Gilchrist wanted to see the council’s own ratings made public sooner rather than later but officers said it would be unfair to publish the council’s own ratings at this stage given not all care homes had been assessed.
Cllr Simon Mountney also expressed concern about whether the council would be able to provide care effectively if it suspended placements in all the care homes it had rated poorly.
Officers said the policy did provide some challenges and risk assessments may need to be made in some care sectors where demand is highest.
A report will be coming back to the committee at a later date and councillors said they wanted to see how council assessments compared to CQC inspections.
Councillors were also updated on the transfer of 215 to 220 staff from the Wirral Community Health and Care Foundation trust to the council after the NHS trust rejected a council proposal.
Despite Cllr Mountney describing it as “a vanity project,” councillors from all parties voted to note the latest report setting the target date of staff transfer for the beginning of July.
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