Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 03 November 2020
That is another really important question. I completely agree with Ms Boyack that many of the Care Inspectorate’s reports are of concern. I meet the Care Inspectorate every two weeks and we discuss what it has found in individual care homes and on its return visits to those homes. In between, my officials are engaged in detailed discussions about how well the NHS is stepping forward to help those homes. Whatever the issue is—a staffing issue, an issue of understanding infection prevention and control and good practice, an issue of cleanliness or an issue of PPE—how well is the local NHS stepping forward to help? How close is the health and social care partnership to working with that home? In some instances, if the home is part of a group, the Care Inspectorate deals directly with the most senior level of management of that group.
In my discussions with the Care Inspectorate, we always ask, “If nothing changes in the next week, what are we going to do about it?”
There has been one instance so far of the NHS acquiring the care home to ensure that it can run properly and to the standard that protects the residents and gives them a quality of life; that was Home Farm care home in Skye. In another instance, the health and social care partnership ended its contract with a particular care home, because it was not getting the level of response from the provider that was needed, and worked with families and residents so that people could be moved to an alternative care home that they were happy with and confident in.
We are very focused on helping care homes to improve so that they meet what we need them to do, but we will not give them forever for that happen and will act if they do not come into line as quickly as we need them to.