Our response to the Care Quality Commission’s State of Care Report

Commenting on the Care Quality Commission’s State of Care Report, Nuffield Trust Chief Executive Nigel Edwards said:

A collapse in the social care market risks leaving vulnerable older people and their families without support at a crucial time in their lives. Sadly, this was entirely predictable. Publicly funded social care services are increasingly failing the most vulnerable in our society and it’s beyond time for the government to act on the evidence the CQC present.

Nigel Edwards, Chief Executive of the Nuffield Trust

“This is the latest publication to sound the alarm about the increasingly fragile state of adult social care in England – and rightly so. With social care providers facing a triple whammy of local authority cuts, staff shortages and the rising cost of labour, it’s highly likely many will simply leave the market or go out of business.

“A collapse in the social care market risks leaving vulnerable older people and their families without support at a crucial time in their lives. Sadly, this was entirely predictable. Publicly funded social care services are increasingly failing the most vulnerable in our society and it’s beyond time for the government to act on the evidence the CQC present.

“The report also highlights that almost half of health care providers rated ‘requiring improvement’ were unable to improve their rating. With funding tight and demand for care rising, this suggests that these providers may have reached a saturation point beyond which further organisation-wide improvements are increasingly hard to achieve. Simply instructing providers to improve services will have little effect when the causes of poor quality care lie beyond their control.”