CQC reports

[Lamere]

I'm looking at a nursing home for my father which has recently had a poor report (only passed on 2 of the 5 criteria). The home seems the best of my local bunch seems failure on paperwork more than anything. New management team brought in to make changes.

What would you do steer clear or go with my gut feel to choose the nursing home?

Hard to say. Gut feeling don't count for that much, nor even word of mouth from other residents' relatives, as what may work for them and their relative might not for you. For instance, if their relative can make their own entertainment and feed themselves they may be okay, otherwise if your dad is reliant on others you can have a deyhdration problem on your hands ie which leads to death.

If your father has his own marbles then you can get honest feedback, if not then can you make it along to see things are okay?

If it is all about bad paperwork, it doesn't matter from your pov, then again with new management it might all be changing again so the good might get thrown out with the bad.

The CQC is officially utter rubbish; the last nursing home nearly killed my mother and a lot of residents went into hospital with deyhdration, I understand some didn't make it. The home - am I allowed to name it? No one else is doing so - has had a discrete note on the CQC review saying 'Following information received we are carrying out an inspection' and that note has been up there about six months; the home was already on their radar cos a member of staff turned whistleblower about low staffing levels.

But still no bad review of it on the CQC website! Nice!

One of the care homes we looked at for my mum did have a reference in the CQC report to understaffing. We looked nevertheless and the manager did have a reasonable explanation for what had happened and what measures had been put in place. We ended up not choosing it because we found one we preferred, not because of the comment in the CQC repot.

It may be like schools which, once they've been put into special measures, are arguably good places to send children as so much effort is going into pulling them up to scratch. Those schools classed as 'outstanding' may tick all the boxes but it doesn't mean they don't have faults (my sons go to an outstanding school and I could give you a list of things wrong with it as long as my arm!)

I personally would go with gut feeling - and that is what my sister and I did for mum. We visited some homes which were recommended to us and both thought, 'no way'. Are you able to visit regularly? If you are able to, and at different times of the day, you would be able to keep on top of any problems that might arise.

Is it a private home or one of the large charitable status ones? If I were you I'd turn up to look around unannounced on a number of occasions. I'd also strike up conversation with other residents families.
Go at different times too. Usually homes have less staff on in the evening so this is the real test.

I think families of care homes should communicate more and set up a closed FB acct to discuss their shared experience and not feel so isolated. That's the way to really know what is going on.

Read the detail of the report, not just the ratings. A NH can have fantastically caring staff and still fail on technical issues that will probably have no impact on your father.

I would use a combination of info from both what you feel and pick up by talking to people and look at CQC website too. Even if the home is currently under an inspection review there will be previous reports to look at, which will give you a flavour of whether it has met the Health & Soc Care Regs in the past.

Or if no report on site call the inspector for the service and ask them what's going on if a report has been missing for a significant period, because it shouldn't be. 03000 616161 ask for inspector for whatever home is called.

Good luck in finding a place you are happy with.