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April 2010
incorporating The Number One magazine for the care sector
no.167 • £4.75 In association with
Call for hotel rating system for industry By Dominic Musgrave THE inspectorate should replace its current star rating system with one similar to that used by the hotel industry, the head of an organisation has claimed. Registered Nursing Home Association chief executive officer Frank Ursell says the CQC is learning from the mistakes of its predecessor CSCI about the best ways of assessing the quality of services, but still has some way to go before it has established a reliable, accurate and fair method. He was responding to a consultation document from the regulator on changes it is thinking of making to the quality assessment system. Frank told Caring UK the association has been campaigning for years to persuade inspectorates to concentrate more on whether or not residents are benefiting from the care they receive, rather than on whether or not the office paperwork is in order. He added: “Let us hope that, when the ink is dry, the new inspection regime being promised will live up to expectations, and that the flaws we have endured under previous regulators will be dispatched to the bureaucratic dustbin where they
belong. We have had serious concerns about the current star rating system because we felt it was a very blunt instrument, especially in the way that the regulator decided how many stars to award a particular nursing home. The criteria used are not altogether fair or logical. Nor is there consistency.” “We believe that a five-star system would be better than a three star system, partly because it would more appropriately reflect the different levels of quality achieved by care homes and partly because most people are familiar with the system of awarding between one and five stars to hotels.” Over the coming weeks the association will be discussing the proposals with nursing homes across the country in order to respond formally to the consultation. Frank added: “We also welcome in principle the suggestion from the CQC that ‘quality profiles’ of care providers should be built up from a range of sources of information, so that star ratings are not the only way in which quality is measured.” Do you agree with Frank’s suggestions for a new five-star rating system? Let Dominic Musgrave know by emailing dm@whpl.net or by ringing 01226 734407.
Residents learn art of folding
Keith Chegwin has been lined up to host the Great British Home Care Awards in May. The television presenter will present the event, which celebrates excellence across the sector, and is taking place at the Guildhall, London on May 15.
RESIDENTS at a Sheffield care home were treated to an origami taster session as part of an ongoing volunteering project run by students at the city’s university. Six students took part in the session at Tapton Edge, which aimed to teach the residents the basic skills of the Japanese art of folding paper into decorative shapes and figures, and by the end of the session the residents had learned how to make jumping frogs and swans. The ongoing project involves weekly visits by a total of 17 student volunteers to the care home to provide stimulation and the opportunity to learn new skills together. Deputy manager Pat Bond said: “Residents always look forward to Wednesday afternoons, the students are great with them. We would never have thought of doing activities like origami, the interaction with the students is very beneficial and it’s great exercise for their fingers too.”