New report shows the importance of basic skills

A number of news outlets are leading today with the news that the CQC has found that 32% of nursing homes in England and Wales are failing on safety:

Inspectors making unannounced visits to care homes found medicines being administered unsafely, alarm calls going unanswered and residents not getting help to eat or use the toilet. Some residents were found to have been woken up by night-shift care workers, washed and then put back to bed, apparently to make life easier for staff.

Training, recruitment and retention of skilled staff was cited by the CQC's chief inspector of adult social care, Andrea Sutcliffe, as one of the key causes for failed safety standards across the sector:

“Many of these homes are struggling to recruit and retain well-qualified nursing staff and that means that this is having an impact on delivering good services to people who have got very complex needs".

This shows that staff training is still a difficult issue for many facilities. It is likely that this is going to become a hot issue for the CQC over the coming months and years.