Care homes need investment

In order to improve residents’ standards of life there
needs to be a “seismic shift” in thinking on what
constitutes a care home, delegates were told at Community
Care Live Scotland last week, writes Amy
Taylor.

Jacquie Roberts, chief executive of the Scottish Care
Commission, the body that regulates care in Scotland, said that
care homes needed to be invested in and seen as providing an
alternative way of living which the resident was in charge of.

She said that there were many care homes where the staff were
good and caring but the residents only came to life when someone
visited them. “I have done an inspection and people got
excited because it’s a visitor,” she said.

Roberts added that at the moment older people did not expect
enough from care homes. Almost all of the complaints about care
homes received by the commission come from residents’
families or carers or professionals visiting the home opposed to
the residents themselves.