National Skills Academy urges response to poor home care reports

The National Skills Academy are among the many leading public bodies to request urgent action to drive up home care standards.

Responding to last week’s Which? report, that outlined serious failings in home care services – criticism that include poor timekeeping, customer complaints not dealt with, missed or rushed visits, and poor management of medication – Diane Lawson, national executive of the Academy, said:

'People providing care, wherever they are and whatever their role, need to see it's how they care that counts: a 'how' that is exhibited daily through the ways they behave.

'For us, the best way to improve practice is through improving these behaviours. They are what true leadership means in social care - leadership that involves everyone supporting vulnerable people, whatever their role, and that involves awareness, taking responsibility for your own practice, and addressing poor practice wherever you find it.'

Speaking also in support of wide-scale reform, director general of Age UK, Michelle Mitchell, said: ‘Pressures to beat the clock can easily lead to neglectful care that fails to treat those receiving care as dignified human beings and with wider social and emotional needs.

‘The Government must address root and branch reform of social care in the forthcoming white paper, and adopt the Dilnot Commission recommendations, so that everybody receives high quality social care, which is sustainable now and for future generations to come.’

While chief executive of the English Community Care Association, Martin Green, looked to focus on the role of local councils: ‘The Which? investigation highlights the need to completely review the role of home care services, and particularly the way they are commissioned by local authorities. In recent years we have seen people with multiple and complex needs being supported in their own homes, but local authorities have failed to understand that supporting people with high-level needs requires much more time and higher levels of staff training and support.

‘We are still seeing local authorities commissioning 15 minutes of care and not paying for travel time, or training needs and this is unacceptable and does not enable care providers to deliver high quality care.’