RNHA
??? Registered Nursing Home Association
INFORMATION EXCHANGE - RNHA News Digest
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The RNHA in Wales has joined with four other key organisations in establishing a partnership designed to achieve the greatest possible understanding and collaboration between those who commission care services and those who provide them.
The partnership was officially forged by the signing of a memorandum of understanding at a ceremony held on 23rd February 2009.? Signatories included the RNHA in Wales, the Association of Directors of Social Services in Wales, the Welsh Local Government Association, Care Forum Wales and the UK Home Care Association.
The memorandum states that all the parties involved will seek to reach the best possible shared understanding of population needs and preferences, the evidence base for the best ways of meeting needs in Wales, the priorities and plans of each of the partners, and efficiencies that could be achieved by better working together.
Speaking for the RNHA at the signing ceremony, Emlyn Davies said: ?Our new partnership will help in driving up and maintaining standards, in securing a well trained and competent workforce, and in making the best possible use of the resources available to the Assembly government, local authorities, the NHS and the independent care sector in Wales.?
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Marie Curie chief executive to chair Department of Health?s new end of life advisory board ? RNHA calls for investment in care home staff training
The chief executive of Marie Curie Cancer Care, Thomas Hughes-Hallett, is to head up a national expert panel on end of life care, it was announced by Care Services Minister Phil Hope on 12th February 2009.
The panel, created by the Department of Health, will be known as the End of Life Care Implementation Advisory Board.? Meeting twice a year, it will comprise stakeholders who were closely involved in the development of the government?s strategy for improving the quality of care people receive near the end of their lives,
When the strategy was published in July 2008, RNHA chief executive officer Frank Ursell stressed that there were significant training implications for nursing homes.? Speaking at the time, he said: ?We would hope that a proportion of the new funding pledged in the strategy for end of life care improvements will be made available to us in order to ensure that the necessary training takes place.?
Mr Ursell expressed disappointment that, as a result of previous action by the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI), there was no longer a specific category of registration for nursing homes providing specialist palliative care.
?Whilst I can understand the government?s desire to extend a greater knowledge of palliative care techniques to a wider range of health and social care professionals,? he said, ?I have always questioned the wisdom of CSCI?s abolition of the specialist palliative care nursing home.? In my view, it did not make sense to abandon the idea of centres of excellence.?
Mr Ursell also challenged the Department of Health?s assertion in its new strategy that care homes are concerned about too many of their residents dying on the premises because of the impact on other residents or because they think it may reflect badly on the care they are delivering.
?I do not know how the Department has arrived at this rather stark conclusion,? said Mr Ursell.? ?Speaking for nursing home owners, I can say that we are well accustomed to meeting the specific needs of patients and their families in the final months and weeks of life.? It is therefore quite wrong to suggest that we are somehow reluctant to address all the necessary issues.? The Department should be careful to avoid making such generalised comments.?
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RNHA?s riposte to Lib Dem health spokesman on hygiene claims
The RNHA has expressed disappointment with a Liberal Democrat health spokesman for what it calls ?a smear on the whole care sector.
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This follows a story that appeared in the Daily Mail newspaper on 10th March 2009 in which a statement made by Norman Lamb MP appeared under the headline ?thousands in care homes forced to live in filth?.
Mr Lamb?s statement related to? just 169 out of 10,377 care homes for older people in England that were found by inspectors to have major hygiene and infection control failings,
Responding to the Mail headline, the RNHA said it was highly regrettable that Mr Lamb had completely overlooked the sterling work done by the vast majority of homes to raise standards and deliver high quality care.
Said RNHA chief executive officer Frank Ursell: ?The facts are that less than 2% out of over 10,000 care homes for older people in England were found to have major failings as far as cleanliness and hygiene are concerned.? In other words, some 98% did not have major failings.?
He added: ?Of course there is no excuse for the tiny minority of homes that are repeatedly found wanting by inspectors.? If they don?t put their house in order, they deserve to go out of business.? But their inadequacies should not be used as a political pretext for bashing the vast majority of care homes that are striving to deliver a good service to their residents, despite chronic under-funding of elderly care by the government and local authority social services.?
The RNHA points to very significant improvements in care standards that have been achieved over the past five years, with the Commission for Social Care Inspection?s last report showing that the average percentage of care standards being met by nursing homes for the elderly had risen from around 60% to over 80% during that period.
?In particular, hygiene and infection control has seen a sustained rise in performance,?
said Mr Ursell.? ?It is a great pity that, in Mr Lamb?s rather transparent desire to get his name in print, he has focused exclusively on negative news and has made no reference at all to the hard work of the conscientious majority of care homes.?
Dame Denise Platt highlights social care challenges for councils
Making access to social care fairer and more transparent is one of a number of challenges for councils highlighted by CSCI chair Dame Denise Platt at a Carers UK conference on 10th February 2009.
Dame Denise also identified the need to provide information and advice to everyone who needs care and support; the importance of tailoring care and support to people?s individual needs; making personalised care a reality for people with multiple and complex needs; and commissioning services for whole communities.
The RNHA, which has been a constant critic of many of the policies adopted over recent years by CSCI, said the outgoing inspectorate (due to be replaced on 1st April 2009 by the new Care Quality Commission) had often overlooked the practicalities of providing 24-hour nursing care to highly vulnerable older people and had not sufficiently pressed central government and councils on funding issues.
