Private firms ran almost all care homes forced to shut for breaches in England



Private firms ran almost all care homes forced to shut for breaches in England

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/oct/06/private-firms-ran-almost-all-care-homes-forced-to-shut-for-breaches-in-england

by perversion_aversion

7 comments
  1. Yet another example of why essential and care based services cannot safely be left to the private sector. The profit motive has no place in the caring professions.

  2. > The researchers also found that just over 90% (48 out of 53) of children’s homes closed by Ofsted in England from 2014 to 2023 were run to make a profit.
    > […]
    > For-profit providers operated 82% of adult care homes and **79% of children’s homes** during the period examined by the study.

    Pretty big caveat there half way down the article which the rather misleading headline overlooks. If there was no difference at all in quality, you’d still expect 42 out of the 53 to be privately run. So while the rate of closures does seem to be slightly higher for private ones, it’s not nearly as significant as the headline implies.

    I bet that private firms also ran “almost all” of the top rated care homes as well (72% of the “outstanding” ones in my county are, for instance). But again, that would be a rather misleading headline to publish..

  3. Shocked to find companies that’s main focus is turning a profit and not that people they are meant to be looking after are providing an incredibly shit service in pursuit of that business model.

  4. My mum used to work as an “activities coordinator” in a care-home. It was a full time role planning genuinely interesting/engaging and accessible activities (rather than those stupid tiktok “self-care” things like colouring lol).

    When Bupa (private company – also does dental) took over, her role completely changed. Because she had once upon a time (decades ago) been a fully qualified nurse working double shifts across two care-homes, they started pushing her into things like administering IV drugs unsupervised etc which is very much illegal as her licencse was long expired.

    Eventually she quit which is a real shame and genuinely painful for her because she’s an amazingly caring person.

    It’s like how police forces slowly bully all the nice employees out of their jobs so that only assholes stay long term.

  5. It’s the invisible hand of the market, hard at work! Just, don’t pay any attention to the fact that the hand is holding one middle finger up.

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