The RNHA has challenged local authorities to demonstrate that despite government-imposed cuts they are meeting their legal obligations by setting social services budgets for the coming year that will meet the assessed needs of their most vulnerable populations. The challenge follows publication of the latest annual survey of social care budgets by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, which warned of further drastic cutbacks in expenditure on top of a 20% reduction since the start of the austerity programme in 2010.

Nursing homes, and members of the public wanting to find a good nursing home for themselves or a relative, stand to benefit from a new information service launched on the NHS Choices website, the RNHA believes. Visitors to the Care and Support section of the site will be able to type in the name of a place or postcode and see at a glance what nursing homes are available, what the different homes provide and how far they comply with CQC standards. Welcoming this initiative, RNHA national chairman Ian Turner said: "The NHS Choices website will give nursing homes the chance to tell people about improvements they have recently made to their services, or are planning to make in the near future, which is another factor people may wish to take into account when making up their minds."

Against the backdrop of massive changes to health and welfare systems, the RNHA is launching its annual roadshow to give nursing home owners and managers the chance to discuss the challenges ahead. Said RNHA chief executive officer Frank Ursell: "There has probably never been a moment when so many changes have been taking place all at once. We want to make sure that those who provide 24-hour care to some of the country's frailest and most vulnerable older people are able to respond effectively to those changes at the same time as continuing to deliver the best possible service to their homes' residents."

The RNHA supports the introduction of a new quality rating system for care homes provided that it has the confidence of care providers and service users and accurately reflects individual care homes' performance against a set of agreed criteria. Commenting on recommendations from the Nuffield Trust, RNHA chief executive officer Frank Ursell said he and his nursing home colleagues broadly endorsed the Trust's objectives and welcomed its suggestion that care providers should be closely involved in developing a new scheme and that the administrative and financial burdens upon them should be kept to a minimum.

The need to slash spending on frontline patient services appears to have been one of the key factors behind the fall in vital care standards at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. Commented RNHA chief executive officer Frank Ursell: "In the light of the Francis report, we in the long-term care sector are concerned on two fronts. First, we need to get the message across to the government that thousands of nursing and residential care homes across England are struggling as a result of cuts in public funding for the long-term care of older people. Secondly, we fear a knee-jerk reaction from the government that will enforce greater regulation on hospitals and care homes alike even though the two types of care providers are very different and despite a root cause of many of our problems lying in draconian cutbacks in public expenditure."

The head of the NHS commissioning board Sir David Nicholson's comment that hospitals are 'very bad places for old, frail people' is a welcome recognition of the realities of caring for the long-term health needs of this expanding group in the population. Speaking on behalf of the RNHA, chief executive officer Frank Ursell said: "Dementia care very much needs additional investment - in staff training and in enabling care homes to employ more staff who can spend more time with individual residents. Let us hope that Sir David will knock a few heads together in Whitehall and get the money that is so desperately needed."

Many penny-pinching councils across England are going to have to mend their ways when it comes to funding services for older people following a High Court judgement against Redcar and Cleveland Council, which was found to have tried unlawfully to pressurise local care homes into accepting a cut in fees for 2012/13. Said RNHA chief executive officer Frank Ursell. "This judgement in the High Court makes it clear that councils must pay fees that are sufficient to meet the assessed care needs of older people going into nursing homes. It is also against the law for councils to stop sending new residents to homes that resist the cuts."