Wirral care homes: figures suggest the borough is failing compared to the rest of the North West

No care homes in Wirral are currently rated as outstanding with figures showing Wirral is the worst in the North West for standards of care.

A new report shows that out of 116 care homes across Wirral, 69 are rated good and 47 required improvement.

Comparing Wirral to its neighbours Liverpool and Sefton, it has almost double the number of care homes requiring improvement with Sefton being a leader in the region with 85% of its care homes getting good status.

Data comparing the quality of beds in the North West between 2020 and 2022 showed that there has been a drop of more than 18% in Wirral in good or outstanding quality of care.

The government recently announced additional funding for the social care sector though it is not known how this will be given out to councils. The government also said it was going to postpone changes to the cap on costs for social care.

Michael Vaughan, who manages the family-run Red Rocks nursing home in Hoylake, doesn't think the government is doing enough to tackle the social care crisis and fund councils. Adult social care is one of the biggest contributors to the council's budget gap of £49m and makes up 34% of the council's overall budget.

Mr Vaughan said: "The difficulty is that a lot of care homes are so poorly paid by local authorities and it is impossible to provide a reasonable or minimum standard of care because of what the council pay.

"Central government needs to pay local authorities a sufficient minimum for them to pay for good quality care homes to look after their residents. Poor care shouldn't be rewarded."

A report, to be looked at by Wirral Council's adult health and social care committee, said "staff vacancies and staff turnover is greater in the less affluent areas."

The report also said care homes in richer parts of the Wirral have people who are older but have better physical health. Those in care homes in poorer areas are "younger, have complex multiple health needs, are less mobile with a high staff dependency and have shorter life expectancy."

Under the Care Act 2014, Wirral Council has a duty to "maintain an efficient and effective market of services for meeting the care and support needs in the local area."

Mr Vaughan said despite paying staff a higher wage of £12.10 an hour as well as other benefits, he still struggles to recruit staff.

He said: "The care sector is generally so poorly paid and so poorly respected that people have left. It's difficult to get people interested because of the general perception and idea that it is not very well paid."

While Red Rocks which employs 50 staff is not suffering from staff shortages, Mr Vaughan added "not every home in Wirral or further afield has the ability to do as we do."

One agency care worker who works in multiple care homes across Wirral said sometimes people had to skip breaks due to understaffing and care homes she worked in struggled to find workers to fill shifts.

Kate Patient is a care worker at Apple Blossom Court in Wallasey. It was recently awarded an excellent status by the Liverpool City Region and looks after people with learning difficulties.

She said they were shocked by the assessment as the care home had required improvement in 2020 from a Care Quality Commission assessment. While their home is full staffed with 25 full and part-time workers, she said that there was a demand for staff across the sector.

She felt the care sector was "forgotten about" particularly during Covid. However she wanted to stress "that all care homes aren't bad to work in and we do try and provide what we can with what we have got." This includes trips to Blackpool and Chester Zoo.

Mr Vaughan thinks the scrapping of the Health and Social Care levy was a "huge mistake even in the current climate." The levy would have seen people's national insurance increase by 1.25%.

He argued it was an "error" and doesn't see a solution to the issues in the care sector being solved any time soon.

He added: "The reversal has set the social care sector back by 10 years. It was unpopular but it was a move in the right direction. It's damaged the social care sector because it was a way to start funding the care sector properly. It's been kicked further down the road."

Wirral Council said it plans to improve care by targeting 31 care homes with an assessment before the end of January 2023 and assess the rest in the next 12 months. It will also "produce a clear and transparent policy" which will outline standards and "the consequences for repeated service failure resulting in suspension of contracts."