A stinging report claiming that health authorities have been putting nursing home residents at risk because of inadequate inspections has been attacked by the HAs named.
The Social Services Inspectorate claimed that arrangements for registration, inspection and compliance with nursing home regulations failed to meet proper standards, describing them as 'haphazard'.
Six HAs - Dorset, Liverpool, West Kent, West Sussex, Avon and Enfield and Haringey - were assessed for their work.
With HA responsibilities for inspection being transferred to the National Care Standards Commission from April next year, the report said: 'There is an urgent task for health authority managers to take the necessary steps to ensure services are safe before they are transferred to the commission.'
The report added: 'We found that arrangements for registration, inspection and ensuring compliance were haphazard and failed to provide a safe system to adequately protect residents.'
It also claimed the HAs were failing to safeguard the small number of children being cared for in nursing homes.
'In most units, there was a lack of attention to ensuring homes had procedures for identifying and responding to allegations of abuse, and that these were linked to local multi-agency procedures.'
Individual reports were sent by the SSI to each of the HAs taking part, but there is anger that the inspectorate's overall report fails to distinguish between any of the HAs when making criticisms. It also exempts one unit, saying it had a 'well-managed approach' but fails to name the HA.
Many HAs think they have been tarred with the same brush through the report. Avon - which claimed the work of its own unit had been described in feedback from the SSI as 'exemplary' - was particularly upset.
Cheryl Blaber, head of registration and inspection, said: 'It is a poor report. It is non-specific and it doesn't recognise the different health authorities and their cultural differences.
'It was scathing and critical without being specific. I regret its style and manner, and things could have been done much better.'
Avon HA chief executive Pamela Charlwood will be writing to its authors.
A spokesperson for Liverpool HA told HSJ that any suggestion from the report that it was failing to put in safety procedures to protect children was wrong.
He added: 'With the inspection responsibilities being transferred to the commission, I think this report is really about finding a baseline on which the inspectorate can work when the change over is made.'
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