Unaccommodating care homes

On reviewing the evidence from help-line contacts that followed the BBC Victoria Derbyshire programme about bans and evictions from care homes the following themes have emerged,
1. It is not the eviction but the motive behind the eviction that is the true problem. It therefore is not a simple matter of contractual or tenancy rights but of a culture within a care home or organisation. A care home is not letting a room in the role of a landlord, its prime purpose is providing care. Therefore enforcing housing rights is not the remedy as that would only ensure accommodation and without the care this would be pointless.

2. The loophole being used to evict from care homes is that the home can no longer meet the care needs of the individual, I randomly chose 25 homes and called them to ask if they would accept my fictional relative ( Who happened to have exactly the same care needs as the person threatened with eviction or evicted ) In all 25 cases the home were able to accept a person with identical needs.

3. In those cases where eviction has been threatened but not carried out, restrictions or bans on visiting have been enforced, yet the CQC have never asked Why? When a home states in writing it can not meet a residents needs this should be treated as a safeguarding alert. This would have the effect of deterring homes from threatening eviction in the first place and therefore avoid the considerable distress involved.

4.Banning and visiting restrictions should not be allowed to happen in the first place, people should not have to resort to appeals or investigations by panels that will inevitably be lengthy and protracted when the time lost with their loved one can not be given back, people in care homes will have a very limited time to live and therefore this is not the remedy. Also investigation panels would just be another layer of bureaucracy to supplement all the other ineffective layers.

5. The CQC need to stop issuing useless guidance stating what should happen, our evidence shows that when evictions and visiting restrictions have occurred the homes in question have been judged compliant according to this CQC guidance. The CQC are just trying to absolve themselves from any responsibility.