Elderly ‘face Russian roulette care choice’ according to Care Quality Commission

One in four care services are "insufficiently safe" and one in five offer inadequate treatment, according to the largest ever survey of adult social care in England.

The findings of the Care Quality Commission survey of 24,000 providers have prompted charity Age UK to warn that older people are facing a "Russian roulette" choice over care.

The CQC report found 22% of providers were rated as "requiring improvement" or "inadequate" overall, and judged on safety 25% were rated in the lowest two categories.

The most serious problems were in the country’s 4,000 nursing homes, 37% of which were found to be failing on safety.

The CQC found the homes, which care for around 200,000 people, were struggling to recruit and retain nurses.

Around a third of staff left their jobs within a year, said the report.

Sources of danger to residents included homes not having enough adequately trained staff, residents’ calls going unanswered and insufficient oversight of medication.

Rushed visits by at-home services were highlighted as a risk to patients.

Inspectors also found instances of residents not being properly fed and some who were washed and dressed by night staff before being put back in bed, because it was easier than leaving it to day staff.

Age UK charity director Caroline Abrahams told Sky News the findings were troubling.

She said: "It really is a life or death service for many older people.

"To feel that you have got the chance of being in a care home or having care at home or being in a nursing home that just isn’t good enough.

"And where perhaps medicines being administered isn’t safe enough means that older people and their families are facing very difficult choices.

"It is a sort of Russian roulette."

The CQC also found that while some inadequate homes improved over the three years from 2014, a quarter of good homes deteriorated in the same period.

Andrea Sutcliffe, chief inspector of adult social care, said the report showed the majority of services met "the mum test" – whether you would want your mother or other relative to receive the care on offer.

However, she conceded there were clear signs that services were under pressure, a problem that will only increase as the number of over-85s doubles in the next 20 years.

She said: "It appears to be increasingly difficult for some providers to deliver the safe, high quality and compassionate care people deserve and have every right to expect.

"With demand for social care expected to rise over the next two decades, this is more worrying than ever."

Social care is one of the major challenges facing the Government, which has promised a consultation in the Autumn.

Theresa May’s attempt to tackle the issue, by scrapping a proposed cap on costs and promising no one would be left with less than £100,000 of assets after care costs, ended in an embarrassing U-turn.

The debate over new policy is likely to focus on cost, but Ms Sutcliffe stressed that quality of care should be the Government’s first consideration.

Andrew Dilnott, author of a report on social care for David Cameron, told Sky News the cap should be re-introduced.

He said: "In all the other big areas of our lives – our health, driving around, living in a house – we are able to share the risk of something going wrong … with social care we are not.

"That is what a cap would do. It would pool the risk, share the risk across the population as a whole of being one of the unfortunate people who needs a great deal of social care.

"I think there is a huge upswell of opinion that want to see that put in place."

(c) Sky News 2017: Elderly ‘face Russian roulette care choice’ according to Care Quality Commission