Care Home Death Rates

29th July 2016

Andria Sutcliffe, Chief Inspector Adult Social Care CQC

Dear Ms Sutcliffe,
In response to your letter of July 6th,

You refer to your improved inspection process and as evidence to support this you cite your recent prosecution of a Bradford care provider.

However at the time of the residents death this particular home was inspected and rated good by the CQC, you reacted after the death and only then found the home failing.

In response to my request for inspection reports.
You have provided me with 2 reports for Hillcrest and 3 for Alexander Heights and none for Fountain Place. Given these homes past histories these reports should be publicly available. Indeed you gave assurances to Private Eye magazine in 2010 that these reports would be available. I also note that no further inspection reports for these homes have been published just the continual statement that inspections are underway. Given the time lapse since the last reports and the Mail on Sunday investigation I would have expected action long before now.

Regarding the Sidcup Nursing home.
In your previous letter you stated increased death rates would trigger an alert and an inspection, I asked where this information was in the reports at the time and you concede that it was not included. The public have a right to this information in order to make an informed choice about a home.

You say that “ Our intelligence team informs me that the provision of end of life care is currently not taken into account when analysing deaths in care homes”
I find this of grave concern, you can not monitor death rates effectively without taking this information into account. This explains why huge increases in death rates at this home resulted in so little action. The inspections that did place were as you state “ Not due to a alert on death rates”

Yours Sincerely

Eileen Chubb