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David Behan
David Behan, chief executive of Care Quality Commission, which is considering how to assess whether a high number of deaths at a care home would spark an investigation. Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian
David Behan, chief executive of Care Quality Commission, which is considering how to assess whether a high number of deaths at a care home would spark an investigation. Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian

Nursing home death rates to be monitored by Care Quality Commission

This article is more than 10 years old
Plan represents attempt to assess whether elderly people are being failed by social care system

Death rates in nursing homes are to be monitored by the health regulator in an attempt to assess whether elderly people are being failed by the social care system.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) said it was considering how to assess whether a high number of deaths at a care home would spark an investigation. Care homes are required to report to the CQC when a resident dies – but BBC's Panorama, broadcast on Monday at 8.30pm, found that some homes had not notified the authorities.

Brian Jarman, a professor at London's imperial college who co-founded the health statistics and research service Doctor Foster, said he had analysed data from the social care system and found "considerable variation in nursing homes". "You have to remember that this includes people with learning disabilities as well as the elderly. We are some way off having an indicator like standardised mortality rates that we have for hospitals but it can be done."

Jarman said he had met David Behan, the head of the CQC, to discuss the findings. A spokesman for the CQC said they were considering the data from Panorama and would be looking into how to record the statistics.

However, the news comes on the day that all acute services providers are told they will be rated by the regulator by 2015 – a move which will see hospitals prosecuted for breaches of "fundamental standards" such as high death rates.

Care homes are increasingly becoming a focus for government action as many blame the social care system for clogging up hospitals with the elderly who should be in the community. NHS England, the quango in charge of £95bn worth of health spending, announced a consultation to ask patients, public and NHS staff to "help shape the future of urgent and emergency care services".

In launching the review Sir David Nicholson, the head of NHS England, said: "One of the issues we are dealing with is the fact that patients find it hard to navigate between primary care, our hospitals and social care services.

"In many cases some of our most vulnerable patients need careful management and input from a number of different agencies and sometimes they, or their carers, are just not able to understand and work with this range of services, and find themselves in A&E as a last resort. This falls short of the high quality care we want to give every patient."

The NHS has already pointed out that in England patients admitted to hospital as an emergency at the weekend have a significantly increased risk of dying compared with those admitted on a weekday. Data shows that around 4,400 lives could be saved every year if the mortality rate did not exhibit such differences.

Approximately 24 million calls to NHS urgent and emergency care telephone services and an ageing population are leading to ever greater pressure on shrinking resources.

"Growing numbers of frail elderly patients, increasing morbidities, more treatable illnesses and an increased public expectation of healthcare have all contributed to ever greater pressure on health and social care services," said the review (pdf).

"This has led to greater pressure on the urgent and emergency care system and indications that the current system of urgent and emergency care is unaffordable and unsustainable and consuming NHS resources at a greater rate every year."

More on this story

More on this story

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