Patients at risk

Flaws in new elderly care regulations may put patients at risk

The regulatory system that is supposed to protect private nursing home

residents in England and Wales is flawed because of compromises made by the


government, suggest researchers at University College London in this week's


BMJ.





As over half of the healthcare beds in the United Kingdom are in independent


nursing homes for older people, adequate staffing, monitoring, enforcement,


and accountability are key to delivering good quality care, they write.





Under new legislation, which comes into force in England and Scotland in


2002, responsibility for registering and inspecting homes and enforcing


regulations will be transferred to the National Care Standards Commission in


England, the National Assembly for Wales, and the Scottish Commission for


the Regulation of Care. Yet, since the mid-1980s the number of places in


nursing homes in England has increased sevenfold but the number of


inspectors has only tripled. Furthermore, little attention has been paid to


what structures and mechanisms will be required to ensure high quality care


and accountability to users.





In particular the government has failed to stipulate national minimum


standards in the key area of staffing against all the international


evidence.





A Treasury commissioned report recently highlighted the difficulty for


accounting for public funds when care is provided by the private sector and


the need for government to put in place robust mechanisms to safeguard all


clients and those on behalf of whom it is commissioning services. The paper


highlights the absence of information on and monitoring of the healthcare


needs of some 500,000 vulnerable residents in care homes.





International evidence shows that public information on quality of care,


staffing and good systems for public accountability are essential to help


prevent the risk of regulators and government being pressurised, captured


and paralysed by the private sector industry.





If new regulations are to protect patients, they must be strengthened to


ensure that frail and vulnerable elderly people are not at increased risk of


neglect and poor quality care, they conclude.

Bookmark with:

• Delicious
• Digg
• reddit
• StumbleUpon

Don’t know what this is?

Read the 50connect Guide To Social Bookmarking.