Staff and customers from two Anchor care homes have been featured on the BBC’s Six and Ten O’Clock news programmes on Thursday 10 March.
Norton House in Westminster and Kimberley Court in Newquay appeared in the bulletins which discussed the problems caused with changes to the ratings system by regulator the Care Quality Commission.
Comments from Chief Executive Jane Ashcroft about her concerns following the scrapping of the star rating system last year were also featured in the blog of BBC Home Editor Mark Easton.
The news item featured a customer from Kimberley Court and her son who had experienced problems finding a good care home. Since moving to Anchor’s care home in Newquay, the customer’s life has been transformed for the better.
Norton House were featured showing happy customers enjoying meaningful activities at a good rated care home.
Jane, who is also the Chair of the English Community Care Association (ECCA), said the former system, which rated services either excellent, good, adequate or poor, will be replaced by a less clear classification process.
She said: “The new system will see services being rated as either compliant or non-compliant. There will be an additional excellence rating but providers will have to pay for this.
“I’m concerned because this new system will make it more difficult for older people and their families to decide which organisations provide the best care.
“The compliant band is too wide ranging – adequate care services will be in the same band as excellent services which can’t afford to pay for this excellent rating.”
Jane added that Social Care Minister Paul Burstow and the CQC had stated opposing views on whether local authorities will only be allowed to commission services which have an excellent rating.
She said: “Not having an excellent rating is a double whammy. If providers don’t pay for an excellent ratings inspection they may find themselves losing out on local authority funding.
“And older people and their families will assume that a home without an excellence rating is not an excellent home – rather than a home that has not paid for an optional, additional inspection.
“You raise standards by investing in excellence, not paying to be judged excellent.”
