The State of Health and Care
“The health and care system is gridlocked and unable to operate effectively. This means that people are stuck – stuck in hospital because there isn’t the social care support in place for them to leave, stuck in emergency departments waiting for a hospital bed to get the treatment they need, and stuck waiting for ambulances that don’t arrive because those same ambulances are stuck outside hospitals waiting to transfer patients.
The Care Quality Commission's (CQC) annual assessment of the state of health and social care in England looks at the quality of care over the past year.
The CQC finds:
- Most people are still receiving good care when they can access it – too often, however, people are not able to access the care they need.
- Capacity in adult social care has reduced and unmet need has increased.
- Only 2 in 5 people are able to leave hospital when they are ready to do so, contributing to record-breaking waits in emergency departments following a decision to admit, and dangerous ambulance handover delays.
CQC also highlights its concerns about specific service areas, in particular maternity services and those that care for people with a learning disability and autistic people – areas where inspections continue to find issues with culture, leadership, and a lack of genuine engagement with people who use services.
They say that Health and care staff want to provide good, safe care but are struggling to do so in a gridlocked system. This is reflected in growing public dissatisfaction with health and care services – which is mirrored in staff dissatisfaction. More staff than ever before are leaving health and social care and providers are finding it increasingly challenging to recruit, resulting in alarmingly high vacancy rates which have a direct impact on people’s care.
What needs to happen?
The CQC concludes that
- Solutions to the problems that affect people’s care can only come from long-term planning and investment
- The relationship between health and social care needs to be recognised
- Issues of recognition and reward for the social care workforce need to be addressed.
- Staff shortages are a significant issue. Without action now, staff retention will continue to decline across health and care, increasing pressure across the system and leading to worse outcomes for people.
Read more
The CQC's State of Care report can be downloaded from the CQC website
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and social care in England.
