More than half the care homes in England have not been fully inspected by the regulator the Care Quality Commission (CQC) since the start of the pandemic, ITV News can reveal.
Analysis of CQC data has found that more than 6,000 care homes in England have not had a full inspection since 2020.
The CQC aims to carry out inspections at least once every two and a half years for homes rated ‘outstanding’ but services rated as ‘requires improvement’ must be reinspected within 12 months.
The analysis – carried out by the independent Care Inspections UK (CiUK) and shared exclusively with ITV News – also found that around 250 of those homes are rated ‘requires improvement’ – so they’re overdue an inspection by up to four years.
ITV News has spoken to several families who believe CQC inspections cannot be trusted after what their loved ones experienced in what ratings led them to believe were high-quality care homes.
Richard Last, whose mother Ann King was abused in a highly rated care home, said the CQC is “not fit for purpose” and that re-inspections must be carried out much faster to give families of vulnerable residents peace of mind.
“How can anyone trust the rating given to a home by the CQC if regular inspections are not being carried out?” he said.
“We thought we were sending our mum to a top-of-the-range home but we could not have been more mistaken. The CQC needs a complete overhaul because the system is broken and a fish rots from the head down.”
Along with his sister Clare Miller, Richard has been campaigning for the government is bring in “Ann’s Law”, which would enforce a set of rules and standards designed to protect residents from abuse and neglect.
Richard also wants CQC inspections to be unannounced so that care homes aren’t given time to prepare and avoid scrutiny.
What happened to care home resident Ann King?
Sasha Paterson – a retired social services manager who co-founded care home support group the People’s Care Watchdog during Covid – said “care home families will be completely unsurprised by this latest evidence of the regulator’s ongoing willful neglect”.
“CQC has shown itself unfit for purpose ever since its inception and their failings have been made public numerous times.
“Care home families have no faith in meaningless talk about improvement plans when the regulator hasn’t even been held to account for their appalling behaviour during the Covid crisis.”
Care campaigner and leader of the Liberal Democrats, Sir Ed Davey, hit out at the CQC for what appears to be a very slow re-inspection rate.
“This report will be deeply worrying to all those who are in these homes or have a loved ones there. “Going into a care home is not a step that anyone takes lightly and being forced to go in blind, with no knowledge of the quality of the care being provided, will only add to these anxieties.“It is no secret that the social care sector is broken, run into the ground through shameful Conservative neglect, but the Labour government has been far too slow in moving to fix it.“Their timetable for a review of three years is much too long and people simply cannot afford to wait in suffering any longer. We need to see the Government complete this review by the end of this year at the very latest.”
Dr Kevin Groombridge, chief executive of CiUK, said: “It is becoming patently clear that ‘Care Quality’ Commission, is a misnomer. How can the organisation claim to be ensuring ‘care quality’ when it hasn’t fully inspected around half of the country’s care homes for five years?”
He added: “The government needs to get real about the fundamentally flawed CQC; not only is it monumentally behind but its metrics are skewed; it bases its ratings on subjective and biased opinions, rather than evidence and data and leaves care home operators out in the cold, offering criticism without support.
“Even when it carries out an inspection, the CQC can take up to four months to complete its report. It’s simply not good enough.”
Responding, a CQC spokesperson insisted it would “take action to protect people” where high quality care is not being provided, but accepted it does need to speed up its inspection rates.
“While we know many people are accessing good, safe care, it is clear that is not always the case for too many others.
“We know that we need to increase our rate of inspections to make sure that we update the ratings of providers, minimise the number of unrated services, and give the public confidence in quality of care.”
They added: “We are working hard to improve how we operate – making sure we have the right structure, processes, and technology in place to help us fulfil our vital role of helping people get good care and supporting providers to improve.”
The spokesperson said anyone in a care home or their loved ones can iform the CQC with its Give Feedback on Care service.
The government’s Department for Health and Social Care has also been contacted for comment.
Dennis Goodwin, whose mother lived in a home in Merseyside rated as requiring improvement, has also raised concerns about how the CQC reacts to complaints.
Dennis had repeatedly complained to the CQC about what he believed was a poor level of care being provided to his mother, but was told the regulator does is “unable to investigate, or respond to, concerns relating to providers of health and social care services”.
“What is the point in the CQC if its unable to investigate specific complaints about a home where family members think their loved one is being neglected?” he asked.
It comes after it was revealed in January that the regulator has a backlog of “5,000 notifications of concern” in relation to issues raised about NHS providers.
Speaking at the Commons’ Health and Social Care Committee, the CQC’s new chief executive Sir Julian Hartley said clearing “backlogs of what we call notifications and information of concern” is a key priority for the CQC.
“These are both requirements of providers to notify us of major issues and incidents and changes, and it’s also the opportunity for people to contact the CQC with major issues of concern,” he added.
Sir Julian said many of those notifications had gone months without a response.
Speaking after the session, committee chair Layla Moran said: “The CQC told us that the organisation currently has a backlog of around 5,000 notifications of concerns, which include ‘major issues of concern’ from staff and members of the public.
“It is not acceptable that concerns being flagged to the regulator are going months without a response.
“We impress upon the CQC that it must work at pace to address the shortfalls identified in the Dash review. We will be closely following what work the regulator does to remediate its current state and restore its credibility.”
A spokesperson for the CQC stated: “We recognise the urgency of addressing these issues and are committed to delivering more assessments at a faster pace. These changes represent just one aspect of our broader effort to reform and rebuild trust in our operations.”
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In February, Sir Ed said the CQC must “do its job better” in order to protect care home residents, while speaking on ITV’s This Morning about abuse and neglect.
The MP, who is a carer for his young disabled son, said: “I couldn’t be more committed to improving the quality of care for the whole of our country and for the millions of others who are like me, who have their loved ones in the care homes.”
He said the CQC isn’t getting to the heart of the challenges within care homes or addressing the issues fast enough to make change.
“I think it’s about getting the Care Quality Commission in the right place, and hopefully the new head Julian Hartley will do that, but also it’s about making sure we improve the quality of carers to make sure that all of them are really good, and we root out the bad apples.”
He added: “We need Care Quality Commission to do its job better.”
CQC interim Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care and Integrated Care James Bullion told ITV News the watchdog is committed to improving.
“It is essential that when people share concerns with us they’re acted on appropriately and we will continue to push for improvements on how CQC listens and acts on this information. We are working hard to improve our regulatory oversight, including increasing the number of inspections we do to give the public confidence in quality of care.
“Care homes are people’s homes and everyone living there deserves to be treated with dignity and respect, to be listened to, and to be given safe, high-quality care and we will continue to hold providers to account where we find this is not the case.”
If you’ve been impacted by this issue, please contact yourstory@itv.com.
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