Investing in staff and leadership is the key to delivering quality care for older and disabled people, according to new research published today in a report, the real cost of quality care and support, by the National Care Forum and Counsel and Care.
It says care services with high star ratings spend up to 20% more on staff and their training, development and management, as well as putting service users at the centre of everything they do.
Not-for-profit providers also receive consistently better quality ratings.
The report, is a response to the green paper on the future funding of care. The two organisations say that more resources are needed to fund better quality care.
Some local authorities pay residential care providers as little as £315 a week for a place in a care home which is insufficient to deliver quality care as providers face rising costs.
Some providers are able to spend three times as much on meals for residents as others.
The report, based on a survey of not for profit providers of care, reveals that the top determinants of better care are:
• the views of people who use services and their families
• putting relationship-centred care into practice
• effective leadership and management
• learning and development
• valuing and rewarding staff
• service innovation and new ways of working
• income and costs
Des Kelly, executive director of National Care Forum, said: "The National Care Forum was established to promote quality outcomes for people who receive care and support services. Our members, as not-for-profit care providers, have consistently demonstrated a commitment to continuous improvement and service development. It is clear that a person-centred approach which recognises that people receiving services are central to defining quality and this depends primarily on leadership and being able to reward staff appropriately."
Stephen Burke, chief executive of Counsel and Care, said: "Valuing care means valuing the people who provide care. The underfunding of care in this country means that many staff are poorly paid and poorly trained. Older people and their families are the real losers. We must invest in the care workforce for all our futures."
