The new system will initially be a pass or fail approach, with some inspections but more of an emphasis on self regulation. This has raised various concerns, especially because it does not provide more than basic information for as long as another 12 months – nearly two years after the previous system was scrapped.

This is bad for the public, who will have less information to actually work out which is the best care home for granny.  Say you are looking for a care home in the south west, how on earth would you know which house to choose? Unless there is some kind of standard measurement (such as star ratings) there is little to go on.

So an excellence system might work – but it is a long way off and until then the public looking for care homes are pretty stuffed.

Word of a star rating replacement will not be announced until May 2011, meaning thousands of people will find it harder to choose a care home. That said, the Best Care Homes website is still providing care home star rating information on its website. There is also an interesting press release article about the removal of star ratings for care homes

One example, the use of care home data shows how this can improve the quality of services. A huge volume of data exists
within the pdf inspection reports of care homes carried out by the regulator the cqc – the bestcarehome site has extracted this information under license and used it as the backend for a website. Without the legislation from the European Union there would not have been the pressure on the UK government to pass PSI laws that allowed this re-use to take place.

What is less clear is who would qualify for this support, and perhaps
more criticaly, where the money would come from.  With public
finances in dissarray, it is clear that either party will be making
significant cuts after the next election.  If these proposals
were to survive, the question must be asked what else would be cut to
cover the cost.

Certainly, such proposals reflect growing political awareness of the
‘grey vote’ in an ageing population, which has found a focus around the issue of older people selling homes to pay for care.

In theory, there is some good news in this story for Care
Homes – if state funding holds up it will be easier for homes
to maintain occupancy. On the other hand, the likelihood is that
funding will in fact continue to be tight and domicilliary care being
seen as a cheaper alternative.  In short, perhaps not as good
news as it initialy looks.

Some of the complexities of finding a
suitable care home are not widely known, and only when people have to do this for a family member do they realise how hard it is to find good information and advise.

A care home website is running a public appeal / competition (with a reward for best response) to find a care home for Jack Wooley. The idea is to provoke
public debate and awareness of the difficulties in finding care homes, as well as informing people about the information that is now available on the
internet.