NEWS RELEASE FROM
THE REGISTERED NURSING HOME ASSOCIATION
Issued 16th March 2005
CHANCELLOR’S STATEMENT: GOVERNMENT REORGANISATION FEVER QUESTIONED
Nursing home leaders have questioned the wisdom and timing of a government decision to abolish the Commission for Social Care Inspection and merge it with the Healthcare Commission as part of the purge of quangos announced today by Chancellor Gordon Brown in his budget statement.
Responding to the announcement, the Registered Nursing Home Association (RNHA) said that at a time when stability in the regulation of social care services was needed more than ever, the government had decided on yet another reorganisation of the body charged with overseeing the provision of care to vulnerable older people.
Commented RNHA chief executive officer Frank Ursell: “Just as the Commission for Social Care Inspection is beginning to settle down following the abolition of its immediate predecessor, along comes the same government which set it up to say that its days are now numbered. Many people will question the common sense and cost of such wasteful reorganisations.”
He added: “Those of us who provide residential nursing care to older people and who have to keep getting used to different regulators with different titles and different terms of reference take little comfort from the fact that we originally pressed the government to place nursing homes under the same regulatory umbrella as the NHS and other healthcare providers. They appear now to have heeded the message, but rather late in the day and with consequences that will be disruptive for the regulators and the regulated alike.”
The RNHA is also concerned about the lack of consultation by the government on the changes proposed. Said Mr Ursell: “It is only a few weeks since nursing homes were told that they were going to have to pay an extra 20 per cent in fees to the Commission for Social Care Inspection in line with the government’s strategy to make the organisations being regulated pay the full cost of regulation. Surely, if that is the case, we should have some say in the organisational arrangements of that regulatory process.
“The timing also gives cause for concern in the light of the fact that the Commission and the Department of Health have announced a review of national minimum care standards and regulations. Unfortunately, it probably now means that one regulator will undertake the review and a different one will carry out the changes.”
END
Notes to editors:
1. The Registered Nursing Home Association represents 1,300 nursing homes throughout the United Kingdom.
2. Since April 2004, nursing homes have been regulated by the Commission for Social Care Inspection. Between 2002 and 2004, they were regulated by the National Care Standards Commission. Before that, they were regulated by Health Authorities.
For further information and comment please contact:
Frank Ursell, Chief Executive Officer, Registered Nursing Home Association
Tel: 0121-454 2511 or 07785 227000 mobile
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