The quality of care homes in Wirral has been branded a “mess” as statistics show it is the worst in the North West for good quality beds.
The problems in the care sector were highlighted in a recent report that showed no care homes in Wirral have been rated outstanding and there are twice as many requiring improvement compared to neighbouring Sefton and Liverpool.
At a Wirral Council meeting, councillors were critical of a lack of progress in providing better care for elderly and vulnerable adults but officers defended their approach saying that progress was being made before the Covid 19 pandemic.
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Before the pandemic, Wirral was ahead of five other councils in terms of the number of beds ranked good or outstanding by the CQC but this has dropped by 18% since 2020.
Wirral Council said it plans to improve care by targeting 31 care homes with an assessment before the end of January 2023 and assess the rest in the next 12 months.
Cllr Simon R Mountney wanted to see progress sooner. He said: “I can’t accept that it is going to take 12 months to turn some of this thing around, we have got ourselves into this mess and we need to get ourselves out of it”
The council said it will "produce a clear and transparent policy" which will outline standards and "the consequences for repeated service failure resulting in suspension of contracts."
However one councillor, Amanda Onwuemene, said she was disappointed the policy at this stage was “just bullet points” asking “where is the action plan?” She wanted council workers to set out in the action plan “what you intend to do and the date that is going to be met.”
There were also calls for transparency from Chair Yvonne Nolan who asked that the council publish when it decides to not place people under its care in certain homes due to poor standards of care.
Cllr Nolan said: “The reality is that we need to be transparent. If it is not good enough for council money for people to be homed, why should the public’s money be handed over to these care homes?”
She worried that without that knowledge, the public won’t be able to make an informed decision when deciding to put their relatives into care.
Amanda Parry-Mateo, Senior Manager for Quality Improvement and Safeguarding, replied: “One of the situations we have to deal with how long it takes to improve the quality of care in a care home. It does take time and doesn’t happen overnight."
She said the new policy would be “robust and transparent” and “deal with providers who are consistently failing.”
Ms Parry-Mateo added: “The legal of side of things is something we really want to take forward” and the council needed to have a “robust position” to tell poor care homes why the council would not be using their services.
Cllr Nolan wanted to see more evidence that current ways the council was monitoring standards were working, adding “what are we doing to help them improve and what are we doing if they do not improve.”
She added: “We can talk all day about the numbers of homes but actually it’s about the people in those beds and that’s the concern I’ve got and I’m sure everyone around this table has.”
Councillors unanimously requested to see a report on progress in June and a policy to make it public if it has suspended council services to a care home for poor standards.
Councillor Mary Jordan also asked to see a breakdown of complaints across the area, adding “somewhere along the line, Wirral is doing something very wrong.”
Graham Hodkinson, Director of Care and Health for Wirral Council, in response to the criticism, said: “It is a shame for us all and as the responsible officer for this, it is not good enough and we need to do better."
Under the Care Act 2014, Wirral Council has a duty to “maintain an efficient and effective market of services for meeting the care and support needs in the local area.”
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