Date published: October 24, 2022
Shared Lives Plus response to CQC State of Care Report
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has released the State of Care 2021-2022 report, an annual assessment of health care and social care in England. The report found that:
- the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to be felt by individuals, families, and care staff.
- staff shortages, as well as struggles to further recruit and retain staff right across health and care, have led to significant rates of unmet and under-met needs.
- disabled people were less likely than non-disabled people to describe the care they received over the last 6 months as ‘good.’
Shared Lives Plus CEO Ewan King said:
“We identify with the many challenges highlighted in the CQC’s report, which have only been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Many of our Shared Lives scheme members are amongst the 88% of care providers who are struggling to recruit and retain carers. This means that Shared Lives is not available to all those who could benefit from this person-centred model of care. Specifically, the decreased numbers of day support and short break carers has resulted in unmet and under-met needs of both people being supported and Shared Lives carers. We urge local authorities to consider ways that they can rapidly put back in place and grow Shared Lives short break and day support arrangements.
Fees also remains an ongoing issue for Shared Lives carers, as it does for 36% of all homecare providers. This year, Shared Lives Plus relaunches the #Invaluable campaign. We invite elected members, Directors of Adult Social Services, and friends and colleagues who work in or draw on social care, to support the campaign, and to commit to reviewing Shared Lives carers fees.
We are appalled by the huge inequalities highlighted in the report that autistic people and people with learning disabilities continue to face when accessing care and support. In particular, we are concerned by the many people who continue to spend unnecessary and lengthy periods of time in closed culture care settings. We know that people who are restricted and restrained often fall into a cycle of distress and ‘challenging behaviour,’ which serves to justify ongoing restrictions. Shared Lives offers people who are labelled with ‘challenging behaviour’ the life-changing chance to form stable, long-term relationships with people they choose and enjoy being with. In the words of Mollie Draper, an autistic person supported by Shared Lives, the Shared Lives model of care and support allows people to decide “what they do with their lives and how they choose to live it.”
We call upon the government to invest in the cost-effective, high quality and person-centred Shared Lives care model. Investment in Shared Lives is urgently needed to provide greater numbers of people with the opportunity to get safe and personal care and support, in a place which feels like home.”
This post was updated on 30/1/24 to better reflect use of language around carer fees.
