Survey sets the standard for residents to rate their care

The residential care sector has taken a major step towards showing what older people across the UK think of their care homes.

The report for the 2012 Your Care Rating Survey sets out the development of Your Care Rating and results from the trial survey, conducted in Autumn 2012. These results show that residents’ opinions of the vast majority of care homes are positive.

Care providers representing more than 45,000 residents in over 850 care homes have participated in the trial survey. Nearly 14,000 responses, from 791 care homes, were received.

The report shows that:

• 96% of participants are satisfied with the overall standard of their care home, with more than three in five (62%) very satisfied;
• 92% of participants agree they are happy living at their care home, with 3% disagreeing;
• While 97% of residents agree that staff at their care home treat them with kindness, dignity and respect, a lower proportion (86%) agree that staff always have time to talk to them, with 8% disagreeing; and
• There is room for improvement in how much say residents have in how care is provided, with a lower proportion of participants (83%) agreeing that they have a real say in how staff provide care and support.

A total of 13 national and regional organisations have signed up to the initiative, including those from the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors. They are Anchor, Avante Partnership, Barchester Healthcare, Borough Care, Care UK, Community Integrated Care, Coverage Care, The Fremantle Trust, Greensleeves Homes Trust, Guinness Care and Support, HC-One Limited, Methodist Homes and The Orders of St John Care Trust.

Baroness Sally Greengross, Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Ageing and Older People, welcomed the report, saying:

“Giving a clear picture of the care provided in residential homes has never been more important. Your Care Rating intends to make sure that residents themselves have a strong voice in evaluating their own care, giving feedback to providers in a safe, confidential way and identifying the areas where improvements can be made. Your Care Rating ensures residents have a say, adding a direct, personal perspective to the information already available on the way individual homes comply with essential care standards. This trial survey has provided an initial view of how residential care is perceived. From September 2013, when at least 100,000 places will be targeted for inclusion in the largest ever survey of residential care, Your Care Rating will publish home by home results, to help those families considering residential care to make an informed choice, and to drive continuous improvement by care home providers in the areas that residents themselves think most need improving.”

Douglas Quinn, Chairman of specialist care development and construction partners Castleoak, said:

“Providing older people with the opportunity to give an authoritative view on the quality of care in residential homes is a vital step forward. A survey covering 100,000 places – more than a fifth of total residential places in the UK – is an ambitious but hugely worthwhile target, and I would urge all care home providers to participate and contribute to both quality and transparency across the sector.”

Ipsos Chief Executive, Ben Page, said:

“One of the times when people are most vulnerable is in later life – this new study gives robust information about how residents themselves perceive standards of residential care in the UK, and we hope can be part of changes to drive up standards. Ipsos’s work in 2012 for Your Care Rating developed the first standard set of questions to be used in a consistent way across the care sector, giving residents the opportunity to be heard and prospective customers good information on which to base their care decisions. We look forward to working with Your Care Rating to roll this survey out on a much bigger scale this year.”

• For more information go to www.yourcarerating.org