How to Improve Falling Care Home Property Standards

• Budget Allocation: Despite recent funding boosts for social care, there’s still a shortfall in meeting long-term stability needs. While the allocated £650 million can enhance care home quality, it falls short of the £2.35 billion required for sustained improvement.
• Design Considerations: Addressing design flaws is crucial for raising care home standards. Design impacts safety, care provision, staffing, and management. Refurbishment and redesign efforts should focus on enhancing hygiene, comfort, independence, accessibility, and relationships between residents and caregivers.
• Moving Forward: With increasing pressure to alleviate NHS burdens, care home providers have an opportunity to combat falling standards. Collaborating with experienced consultants during refurbishment or design processes enables vital improvements. Standardizing these enhancements raises the expected level of care, fostering industry progress and steering away from common pitfalls.

A care home resident should expect a certain fundamental level of quality from their care provider.

However, recently, care home inspections carried out by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) have reported a growing number of care homes that fall short of these standards. How can this severe issue be rectified?

The Budget

With the Chancellor’s budget announced recently, it would be remiss not to discuss the funding boost planned for social care – a total £650 million in 2019/20.

Since the announcement, leading care providers have responded by labelling the funding as ‘a sticking plaster’ – one that falls far short of the £2.35 billion needed for long term stability.

However, this funding can still boost care home quality and help to revitalise homes which may be lagging behind.

It could also contribute to setting a higher base level of care quality which can then be expanded on in the future for care homes across the country.

Design and redesign

The best way to help raise the standards of a care home is through serious consideration of the design.

Major issues which are often flagged in CQC inspections include: safety, care, staffing and management.

Each of these can be directly influenced by the design of a care home – that is to say, designing and planning a care home is much more than simply figuring out layout and spatial logistics.

By looking at the design of your care home, and thinking about how a refurbishment could have positive knock-on effects to hygiene, comfort, independence, accessibility and carer/resident relationships.

Moving forwards

With so much scrutiny on relieving the burden on the NHS, there is a real opportunity for care home providers to take action against falling standards.

By working with experienced consultants from the beginning of a refurbishment or design process, a care home can make vital improvements in areas which, at first glance, may have not seemed feasible.

Once improvements like these are standardised, the level of care expected by a resident – and inspected by the CQC – will naturally rise, which in turn will allow the industry to move forwards, away from common pitfalls.

Aedifice Partnership is a leading consultancy and project management firm specializing in delivering high-quality projects across various sectors, including care homes, residential properties, education establishments, and commercial properties.

Our range of services includes project management, chartered building surveys, CDM and quantity surveying among others.

At Aedifice Partnership, we manage new care home construction as well as refurbishment projects throughout the UK, why not give us a call to day to see how we can help you.