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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Lay assessors and care home inspections
— is there a future? | | Author(s) | Fay Wright |
| Journal title | British Journal of Social Work, vol 35, no 7, October 2005 |
| Pages | pp 1093-1106 |
| Source | http://bjsw.oupjournals.org |
| Keywords | Voluntary workers ; Advocacy ; Cognitive impairment ; Care homes ; Inspection. |
| Annotation | Lay people have been included in many care home inspections for the past decade. The Board of the short-lived National Care Standards Commission (NCSC) controversially decided to dispense with such lay involvement in their inspection process. The replacement body, the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI), intends to include lay people in the inspection of support services in the community, but is hesitating about reintroducing them into care inspections. This paper reports on research funded by the Nuffield Foundation exploring the role of lay assessors in the inspection process at 13 care homes for older people and for adults with learning disabilities in England and Wales. The research concludes that lay assessors had a significant role in communicating with residents and staff, and in observing care home life. Their role was particularly important, as inspectors were often involved with paperwork and checking policy compliance with the national minimum standards that they were often able to spend little, if any time talking to residents or staff. It is argued that there is a considerable potential for a strengthened role for lay people in the care home inspection process. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-051214208 A |
| Classmark | QV: IQ: E4: KW: 3U |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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