Dozens of Leeds care homes underperforming

A HEALTH watchdog found dozens of care homes and services in Leeds are underperforming and rated three as '˜inadequate' as opposition councillors described the figures as 'very disappointing.'

A total of 40 of the 104 Leeds care homes and services inspected by the The Care Quality Commission (CQC) between April and September were classed as ‘requires improvement’ while three were rated ‘inadequate.’

The figures were revealed in a report to today’s meeting of Leeds City Council’s adult social care scrutiny board.

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Rated inadequate were The Gales Nursing Home in Pudsey, Owlett Hall Nursing Home in Morley and homecare agency Elderly Care Services in City and Hunslet.

Coun Graham Latty, Leeds Conservative spokesman for health, said: These results are clearly very disappointing, and show that a number of homes in the city are simply not providing the level of care that we would want for some of the most vulnerable people in our community. I am encouraged by the fact the council’s scrutiny board continues to monitor these inspection outcomes, providing challenge and analysis of the results. I think more work needs to be done to establish the reasons for the poor performance and to develop ways under-performing homes can improve.”

A Leeds City Council spokeswoman said: “We work closely with the CQC and the NHS to ensure the standard of care received by residents is good and that we receive robust information about the quality of services being provided. Where we find providers are failing to meet standards, we will ensure an improvement action plan is put in place by the providers.

“Where a provider has been judged as ‘inadequate’ by the CQC, we will suspend that provider under our contract, and require an improvement action plan to be put in place as well as closely monitoring the service until improvements have been made and are being sustained.”

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Mark Phillott, Leeds City Council’s head of commissioning for adult social care told the scrutiny board meeting that the council only has a few placements with Elderly care Services in City and Hunslet, which was rated as ‘inadequate.’

Mr Phillott said: “I think we only have three or four clients with that organisation. We are transferring them overv to our new home care contracts.”

Mr Phillott said a total of 217 organisations in Leeds have been rated by the Care Quality Commission since inspections started around two years ago.

A total of 127 were rated ‘good’, 84 as ‘requires improvement’ and six as ‘inadequate.’