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Check our care homes
• LAST week the Tribune had as its front-page article the tragic death of a vulnerable patient in Cheverton Lodge Care Home in Upper Holloway (Probe into ‘panic’ at care home). It showed the lack of emergency procedures at the home and the lack of staff training in heart massage.
Less than a year ago the Tribune covered the situation at Medina Lodge in Finsbury Park, where vulnerable people with learning disabilities were physically and racially abused by care staff. The managers were convicted in court for offences and the home was shut down.
I am calling for the council’s health scrutiny committee to have an urgent look at care homes in the borough. I believe councillors ought to be carrying out unannounced spot checks on care homes to see for themselves the conditions for older people and people with disabilities living there.
These tragic cases highlight the importance of accountability. Elected members ought to be more effectively scrutinising contracts between local authorities (including the Primary Care Trust) and care providers and then holding them to account for the standards in the homes.
Labour members on the council have been troubled by the arrangements between the council and Care UK, which was awarded a care home contract recently. In a deal between the Lib Dem council and the multi-million pound contractor, the awarding of the contract led to hundreds of members of staff being made redundant so Care UK could take on cheaper and probably less-well-trained staff. The risks of this sort of irresponsible contracting-out by the council are inferior care standards for older people in our borough.
There are two lessons to learn: first, elected members have a role in monitoring conditions at these institutions, and that should be a hands-on visiting role, not rubber stamping of contracts.
Second, at the time the contract is awarded there needs to be much more attention paid by elected members to the quality of staff doing the job. I fear that unless the council comes to terms with this issue we will see more tragic deaths in care homes in the borough.
CLLR CATHERINE WEST
Labour group leader
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