CQC warns of growing ‘care injustice’

The CQC has warned of growing ‘care injustice’ with people’s experience of care depending on where they live.

This year’s State of Care report shows that while the quality of care in England has been maintained, and in some cases improved, some people cannot access the services they need, experience ‘disjointed’ care or only have access to providers with poor services.

Age UK estimates that 1.4m people do not have access to the care they need. The number of older people with an unmet care need has grown by almost 20% in two years to one in seven currently.

Story continues below

Advertisement

CQC Chief Executive Ian Trenholme said: “This year’s State of Care highlights both the resilience and the potential vulnerability of a health and care system where most people receive good care but where access to this care increasingly depends on where in the country you live and how well your local health system works together. This is not so much a ‘postcode lottery’ as an ‘integration lottery’.”

The CQC CEO called for incentives to bring health and social leaders together, including changes to funding to allow them to pool resources and invest in technology to improve care quality.

“The challenge for Parliament, national and local leaders and providers is to change the way services are funded, the way they work together and how and where people cared for and supported,” he said.

“The alternative is a future in which care injustice will increase and where some people will be failed by the services that are meant to support them, with their health and quality of life suffering as a result.”