Impact of the CQC cuts

The Care Quality Commission, or CQC – are being massively cut back. Five years ago, there were 50,000 visits in a single year. This year, there will be a quarter of that.  source : Article by Johann Hari in The Independent  where he told his grandmother’s tale …. “Everybody in Britain knows who Baby P was, but who has heard of (say) Parkside House in Northampton, where five elderly people were found with great open wounds of rotting flesh because they hadn’t been moved in weeks? They all died. Every month, a case like this is exposed, and passes silently in the night. Only last week, two care home workers from South Wales were convicted for tormenting dementia patients by flicking their ears until they were “red raw” and terrorising them “for their own amusement”. Yesterday they were given just a few hundred hours of community service. ..”

It is about to get worse. The people who are supposed to inspect care homes – the Care Quality Commission, or CQC – are being massively cut back under David Cameron. Five years ago, there were 50,000 visits in a single year. This year, there will be a quarter of that. The Government is shifting to a model of “light touch regulation”, where homes will largely assess themselves by filling in “paper reviews” – essentially a series of forms.