Calls for new oversight body to tackle 'closed culture' of Scottish care homes

A man is calling for a new regulatory body to be set up to oversee Scotland’s care homes after his mother was allegedly abused in an institution in Ayr.

Bill McCabe from BetterCareScotland says a new oversight body needs to be created to hold the Care Inspectorate to account after his mother said she had been abused while living in a residential home.

He said families like his are experiencing the “dreadful consequences” of poor regulation and data collection within the Care Inspectorate, the body responsible for inspecting standards of care within Scotland.

He said: “When my mum went into a residential care home, we recorded everything.

“A new manager came in and then it went downhill, and after three and a half years of things going badly wrong my mother wanted to be discharged.

“She then disclosed she had been abused and we are now having a very difficult time.

“We feel this abuse is not being investigated and we are getting nowhere.”

BetterCareScotland, which says it has 3,000 members, has claimed the Care Inspectorate “lacks formal risk management, regulatory and analytical expertise” to be able to properly investigate when something goes wrong in a residential care home.

The group added the lack of a regulatory body overseeing the Care Inspectorate means there is no one holding the organisation to account if it fails to identify risks in a care home.

The group has now submitted a petition to the Scottish Parliament calling for the Care Inspectorate to be replaced with a new body that specifically focuses on risk management.

The petition says there is a need for “an independent oversight body of social care regulation operating in real time to address the country’s record of poor social care outcomes” and uses “regulatory and analytical expertise to identify and eradicate poor practice”.

It says in the petition submission that the the Care Inspectorate is “not held to account for failing to identify risks to residents in poorly-resourced, commercially unviable independent care homes for older people that operate as 'closed cultures'.”

The group hopes such a body would also see the number of complaints about care homes being sent to the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman being reduced.

Mr McCabe added: “What we find is whenever something serious happens, there is an inquiry and then we hear the phrase ‘lessons will be learned’.

“That always comes up, but it is meaningless - what will happen, what safeguards will be put in place to make sure something doesn’t happen again?”

He also believes the Care Inspectorate relies too much on qualitative data and not enough on data that can be compared, effectively creating a “data desert”.

Mr McCabe added: “The former chief executive of the Care Inspectorate described the process as staff going into care homes and being able to sense when things are not right.

“They are eyeballing this information.

“Right now it is licking a finger and sticking it in the air.”

The petition will soon be heard by Holyrood’s citizen participation and public petitions committee.

A spokesman for the Scottish Government said it “looks forward to seeing the outcome” of the petition.

The Care Inspectorate declined to comment.