Medway Labour have raised concerns about the current Medway Council Cabinet’s proposals – currently out for public consultation – to privatise Robert Bean Lodge, Nelson Court and Platters Farm in light of the recent press surrounding Friston House and Winchester house care homes.
We will express the concerns of those who have spoken up at numerous consultation meetings at the Health & Adult Social Care Committee on Thursday 26th January.
Concerns raised to us during the consultation process surround the quality of provision for high contact care. We believe that though private homes are subject to inspection by the Care Standards Commision, many more of them fall below acceptable practice when compared to those in the public sector. We have heard relatives say that that they were even refused visits to see their loved ones already in private homes, if they didn’t call first to say they were coming.
Those who work at private homes are just as kind and caring as those who work in our council homes but they are paid less and there are fewer of them, reducing the time they can spend with those they look after. This results in higher hospital admissions where the neglect resulting from lack of time causes more presssure sores and infections.
We also believe the Council has not considered the social partnership model of care home provision which other local authorities successfully persue.
Cllr Teresa Murray said,
“Privatising these much loved homes in Medway will leave the council prey to the private sector, vulnerable to uncontrolled pricing of care and weakened in terms of being able to uphold a gold standard or secure a safe place when things in the private sector go wrong. Even the Parliamentary Public Accounts committee has recently issued a report saying that it’s hard for councils to control standards of care in the private sector and intend to issue guidelines for tightening things up.
We hope that the Conservative Cabinet of Medway council will listen carefully on February 14th to what the consultation has told us all and keep the homes in public ownership. Why let a good thing go when we could build on our success? Privatising the homes is short sighted and the savings resulting from doing so are anyway very unclear,our older people have worked for all of us,they deserve the very best we can provide.”
