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Found 287 results
  1. News Article
    Just one-fifth of staff at a trust engulfed in an abuse scandal expressed confidence in the executive team, according to the Care Quality Commission (CQC), which has downgraded the trust and its leadership team to ‘inadequate’. The CQC inspected Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust following NHS England launching a review into the trust in November 2022 after BBC Panorama exposed abuse and care failings at the medium-secure Edenfield Centre. The two inspections, made between January and March 2023, which assessed inpatient services and whether the organisation was well-led, also saw the trust served with a warning notice due to continued concerns over safety and quality of care, including failure to manage ligature risks on inpatient wards. Inspectors identified more than 1,000 ligature incidents on adult acute and psychiatric intensive care wards in a six-month period. In the year to January, four deaths had occurred by use of ligature on wards which the CQC said “demonstrated that actions to mitigate ligature risks and incidents by clinical and operational management had not been effective”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 21 July 2023
  2. News Article
    The NHS needs to do more to support care homes and people who have fallen with alternatives to ambulance calls and hospital admissions, the NHS England chief executive has said. Speaking at the Ambulance Leadership Forum, Amanda Pritchard acknowledged this winter would be a difficult one for the health service, saying: “The scale of the current and potential challenge mean that we do need to continue to look further for what else we can do… We need to pull out all the stops to make sure that they [patients] get that treatment as safely as possible and as quickly as possible.” She added one area of focus should be making sure certain patient groups can access other – more appropriate – forms of care, rather than calling an ambulance by default and often resulting in hospital admission. On care homes, she said: “Can we wrap around even more care for these care homes so they get to the point where they don’t need to call for help at all or, if they do, there are alternatives pathways [to the emergency department]?” She suggested another area where responses could be made more consistent was for patients who had fallen but without serious injuries, which she said made up a “really significant part of activity”. These patients took a long time to reach and, if admitted to hospital, risked long admissions, she said. Some areas were working to find other ways of responding to non-injury falls patients and trying to keep them away from hospital, she said. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 6 September 2022
  3. News Article
    Millions of people will be invited for their autumn Covid booster jab in England and Scotland, with care home residents the first to receive them. Although infections are falling, health bosses are predicting a resurgence of Covid and flu this autumn and winter. They are urging those eligible to protect themselves from serious illness by getting vaccines against both. A recently approved vaccine against the Omicron variant will be used first. However, there is not enough of Moderna's "bivalent" vaccine to protect everyone aged over 50 so health officials say people should take whichever booster they are offered. These will be the vaccines used in the spring. The UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) announced on Saturday that it had approved a second "bivalent" coronavirus vaccine from Pfizer/BioNTech for people aged 12 and over. Read full story Source: BBC News, 4 September 2022
  4. News Article
    Thousands of vulnerable people are suffering inadequate care as severe staffing shortages in previously good care homes push operators to break rules and put residents at risk. A wave of inspections has revealed the human impact of a worsening nationwide staffing crisis, with people being left in their rooms 24 hours a day, denied showers for over a week, enduring assaults from fellow residents, and left soaking in their own urine. Stretched staff have described scrambling to help residents with buzzers going off and fear the squeeze on their time is dangerous. Analysis by the Guardian revealed that staff shortages were identified as a key problem in three-quarters of all the care homes in England where the Care Quality Commission regulator had cut their rating from “good” before Covid-19 to “inadequate” this summer. A further 10% of homes whose rankings slumped had enough staff, but failed to recruit safely, either not taking references properly, carrying out criminal records checks, or training staff adequately. Families said the staffing shortages had reached “crisis point”. “Older people are paying a heavy price for these failings, as poor care robs them of their dignity, breaks their will and makes them feel unsafe in their own home,” said Helen Wildbore, director of the Relatives and Residents Association. “Older people need much more than empty slogans from the next prime minister about ‘fixing social care’.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 21 August 2022
  5. News Article
    The Irish health services did “relatively well” during Covid-19 but, as in other countries, the pandemic unmasked existing problems, a renowned patient safety expert has said. Peter Lachman of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI), was one of nine international experts who consulted on a new World Health Organization (WHO) report on the implications of the Covid-19 pandemic for patient safety. Dr Lachman said the impact is only starting to be understood. “Ireland did very well early on [in the pandemic], then opened up over Christmas [2020] which led to our numbers going sky-high, then we clamped down again,” he said. "We did well on some things and not so well on others. We have done relatively well when compared with other countries." “Covid-19 was an event which around the world unmasked problems which were there already rather than creating them necessarily,” he said. “The findings start with safety problems — we’ve had safety problems in Ireland but things are getting better. There is a good strategy coming on. I’ve worked with hospitals around the country on this. It’s no worse than other countries.” Read full story Source: The Irish Examiner, 12 August 2022
  6. News Article
    A care home nurse has been struck off after he gave a brain tumour patient sugar and water instead of pain relief. Vijayan Rajoo said he felt the patient was "just being lazy" and did not need pain relief. Rajoo, 64, also failed to check supplies in the controlled drug cupboards at the start and end of his shifts, according to a misconduct panel. He was struck off for 18 months after a deputy manager at the home, St Fillans in Colchester, Essex, discovered 20ml of liquid morphine Oramorph was unaccounted for in June 2019. Rajoo later confessed to not giving the brain tumour patient a dose of Oramorph as a form of pain relief as he felt the patient "did not need it". It was reported the patient could immediately tell the sugar and water mix "didn't taste right". The misconduct panel found all charges against Rajoo proven. In their conclusions, the panel said Rajoo showed a "serious lack of compassion". Read full story Source: ITV News, 13 August 2022
  7. News Article
    Prescribing potentially harmful antipsychotic drugs to people with dementia has increased by more than 50% on average in care homes during the pandemic, new research suggests. It found that the number of people with dementia receiving these prescriptions had soared from 18% to 28% since 2018 – with prescription rates of over 50% in a third of care homes. Professor Clive Ballard, who was part of a national campaign in 2009 to reduce antipsychotic prescribing by half, said: “Covid-19 put tremendous pressure on care homes, and the majority of them must be applauded for maintaining relatively low antipsychotic prescribing levels amid incredibly difficult circumstances." “However, there were very significant rises in antipsychotic prescribing in one third of care homes and we urgently need to find ways to prioritise support to prevent people with dementia being exposed to significant harms.” Antipsychotic drugs are used to treat some of the more distressing behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia, such as agitation and psychotic episodes. They have only very limited, short-term benefits in treating psychiatric symptoms in people with dementia – but significantly increase the risk of serious side effects, including stroke, accelerated decline and death. Dr Richard Oakley, from the Alzheimer’s Society, added: “This study shows the shocking and dangerous scale of the use of antipsychotic drugs to treat people with dementia in care homes. “Alzheimer’s Society has been campaigning for a move away from the model of ‘medicate first’ and funded research into alternatives to antipsychotic prescriptions, focused on putting people living with dementia at the centre of their own care. “This drug-free, tailored care can help avoid the loss of lives associated with the harmful side effects of antipsychotic medications.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 4 August 2022
  8. News Article
    A nurse who recorded she had given medication to care home residents when in fact she had delegated the task to unqualified staff has been struck off. Adelaide Maloane was working a night shift at Somerleigh Court in Dorchester, Dorset, in August 2019 when the incident took place. Ms Maloane delegated giving 16 medicines to residents to an unqualified healthcare assistant at the home. The Nursing and Midwifery Council said Ms Maloane had "failed to acknowledge the seriousness of her misconduct and dishonesty and the implications of her actions for residents, colleagues and the reputation of the nursing profession". Read full story Source: BBC News, 21 July 2022
  9. News Article
    Heather Lawrence was shocked at the state she found her 90-year-old mother, Violet, in when she visited her in hospital. "The bed was soaked in urine. The continence pad between her legs was also soaked in urine, the door wide open, no underwear on. It was a mixed ward as well," Heather says. "I mean there were other people in there that could have been walking up and down seeing her, with the door wide open as well. My mum, she was a very proud woman, she wouldn't have been wanted to be seen like that at all." Violet, who had dementia, was taken to Tameside General Hospital, in Greater Manchester, in May 2021, after a fall. Her health deteriorated in hospital and she developed an inflamed groin with a nasty rash stretching to her stomach - due to prolonged exposure to urine. She died a few weeks later. Heather tells BBC News: "I don't really know how to put it into words about the dignity of care. I just feel like she wasn't allowed to be given that dignity. And that's with a lot of dementia patients. I think they just fade away and appear to be insignificant, when they're not." New research, shown exclusively to BBC Radio 4's File on 4 programme, has found other dementia patients have had to endure similar indignity. Dr Katie Featherstone, from the Geller Institute of Ageing and Memory, at the University of West London, observed the continence care of dementia patients in three hospitals in England and Wales over the course a year for a study funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research. She found patients who were not helped to go to the toilet and instead left to wet and soil themselves. "We identified what we call pad cultures - the everyday use of continence pads in the care of all people with dementia, regardless of their continence but also regardless of their independence, as a standard practice," Dr Featherstone says. Read full story Source: BBC News, 21 June 2022
  10. News Article
    Severe restrictions imposed on care home residents in Scotland during the Covid pandemic caused "harm and distress" and may have contributed to some deaths, academics have said. A 143-page report has been produced by Edinburgh Napier University. It had been commissioned by the independent inquiry into the country's handling of the pandemic. The report says that the legal basis for confining residents to their rooms and banning visitors was "unclear". And it said care home residents were arguably discriminated against compared to other citizens. The report is 1 of 14 that have been published by the Scottish Covid-19 Inquiry, which is chaired by Lady Poole. It found that in the early months of the pandemic there was "little evidence" that the human rights of residents and their families had been considered. It said: "There is substantial evidence of the harm and distress caused to residents and their families by the restrictions imposed in care homes. "This includes concerns that, particularly for people with dementia, being unable to maintain contact with their family exacerbated cognitive and emotional decline, potentially hastening their death." Read full story Source: BBC News, 16 June 2022
  11. News Article
    Nine care home workers are facing trial for neglecting, verbally abusing and deliberately antagonising extremely vulnerable patients in care described as “devoid of kindness and respect” but also criminal. The six men and three women, aged 25-54, are being prosecuted after a reporter went undercover and filmed the behaviour for a BBC Panorama documentary. Opening the case at Teesside crown court in Middlesbrough, the prosecuting barrister, Anne Richardson, said the patients all resided at Whorlton Hall, a 17-bed independent specialist hospital unit near Barnard Castle, County Durham, operated by Cygnet Health Care. Richardson said caring for such residents was a “hard, demanding job, and that carers can face complex, difficult, obstreperous, and sometimes violent people who sadly do not realise what they are doing and cannot help their actions.” But they deserved to be treated with “kindness, respect and patience.” Richardson said the jury would hear evidence of ill-treatment which was “cruel and abusive”. It was “not only devoid of the respect and kindness that those residents deserved but was also a criminal offence”. It included care workers repeatedly saying words they knew to be triggers to patients, belittling those in their care and deliberately antagonising them. Read full story Source: The Independent, 8 March 2023
  12. News Article
    England’s care regulator has been accused of failing to keep private nursing home residents safe after a family alleged a delay in exposing serious risks led to a loved one’s painful premature death. Relatives of Bernard Chatting, 89, said they relied on a “good” rating from the Care Quality Commission when they moved him into a £1,200-a-week home in Dorset. But after he experienced care so unsafe he ended up in hospital and died a few weeks later, it emerged the CQC already knew the home was failing badly. The case comes as CQC’s traffic light ratings become increasingly important for people looking to place relatives in England’s 17,000 care homes amid a staffing and funding crisis which experts fear could increase the risk of maltreatment of the most vulnerable citizens. The ratings from inadequate to outstanding are one of the few ways that families can check care standards. “We wouldn’t have sent Dad there if we knew,” said Chatting’s son-in-law, Phil Davenport. “It is beyond my understanding how the CQC inspect, have serious concerns, and yet not advise the public more quickly. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 8 March 2023
  13. News Article
    A dementia home care agency spent as little as three and a half minutes on taxpayer-funded care visits and filed records claiming far more care was given, according to evidence seen by the Guardian. The hasty care was exposed by Susan Beswick’s family, who called it “totally inadequate”. They say they had been told visits to 78-year-old Beswick, who has Alzheimer’s disease, were supposed to last 30 or 45 minutes. Across nine visits this month, care workers formally logged close to six hours of care. But security cameras suggest they were in the house for under one hour 20 minutes – less than nine minutes a visit on average. On one evening visit, footage showed two carers entering, asking if Beswick had eaten and checking her incontinence pad, before leaving three minutes and 15 seconds later. But they appeared to log on a care tracking app that they had been with her for one hour and 16 minutes. Beswick, who for years was a care worker herself, “deserves so much better”, said her daughter-in-law Karen Beswick. “It’s upsetting us the way mum is being cared for here,” she said. “They come in and check her [incontinence] pad and go. They are supposed to be encouraging her to drink. They don’t really talk to mum a lot. It’s not good at all. I will start crying. We are all trying to get the best for mum.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 30 January 2023
  14. News Article
    Devon care homes say they are being asked to accept patients with Covid-19, flu and other infectious diseases to ease the pressure on local hospitals. One owner said it felt like the start of the pandemic again, as the safety of care homes was being "compromised". Devon has some of the longest waits for emergency care in the country, according to NHS figures. Simon Spiller, owner of The Croft Residential Care Home in Newton Abbot, said since the start of winter the home was being asked to shortcut its assessment process to help ease the blockages in Devon's hospitals. He said other local care homes have told him they were facing the same pressure. Mr Spiller said: "We're being encouraged, or really asked, to shortcut our assessment process. Normally, one of our team would go to the hospital to assess people, to really understand their care needs, to ensure they're an appropriate fit for our care home, which specialises in dementia. "Increasingly, because of the speed they're trying to achieve a discharge, we're being asked to accept people at kind of face value, as presented by the NHS." Read full story Source: BBC News, 26 January 2023
  15. News Article
    A man plans to sue a nursing home because, he says, during the pandemic his mother was put on end-of-life care without her family being told. Antonia Stowell, 87, did not have the mental capacity to consent because she had dementia, say the family's lawyers. Her son, Tony Stowell, said if end-of-life care had been discussed, he would not have agreed to it. Rose Villa nursing home in Hull says all proper process in Mrs Stowell's care was followed with precision. As a prelude to legal action, Mr Stowell's lawyers have obtained his mother's hospital records which, they say, show she was diagnosed with suspected pneumonia while living in the home. End-of-life drugs were then prescribed and ordered by medical professionals. In a statement, Rose Villa said: "We believe that our dedicated and professional team provided Antonia with the very best care under the direction of her GP and medical team, and all proper process in the delivery of this care was followed with precision." Mr Stowell's lawyers, Gulbenkian Andonian solicitors, said his mother's hospital records reveal the decision to put her on end-of-life care was made two days before the family was told. In their letter to the home announcing the planned legal action, they said Mrs Stowell could have had "48 additional hours on a ventilator with treatment… with the necessary implication that Antonia Stowell could still be with us today or at least survived". The lawyer dealing with the case, Fadi Farhat, told the BBC: "As a matter of law, there is a presumption in favour of treatment which would preserve life and prolong life, irrespective of one's age or condition. "Therefore to deviate from that presumption means a patient, or family members, should be consulted as soon as that decision is made or contemplated." He adds: "What is particularly concerning for me is this case occurred at the height of the pandemic. That should worry everybody because it demonstrates that rights can be suspended in times of crisis, when the very purpose of legal rights is to protect us during times of crisis." Read full story Source: BBC News, 9 January 2023
  16. News Article
    Care providers are demanding double the usual fees to look after thousands of people who need to be discharged from hospitals to ease the crisis in the NHS. Care England, which represents the largest private care home providers, said on Sunday it wanted the government to pay them £1,500 a week per person, citing the need to pay care workers more and hire rehabilitation specialists so people languishing in hospital can eventually be sent home. The rate is about double what most local authorities currently pay for care home beds, an amount Martin Green, the chief executive of Care England, described as “inadequate”. The demand comes as the health secretary, Steve Barclay promised “urgent action” with up to £250m in new funding for the NHS to buy care beds to clear wards of medically fit patients. The money will be used to buy beds in care homes, hospices and hotels where people are looked after by homecare providers, as well as pay for hospital upgrades. Stays will be no longer than four weeks until the end of March. The use of hotels as care homes began during the pandemic and has been controversial, with reports of problems with hygiene and supplies of specialist equipment. The charity Age UK last week criticised their renewed use as “not an appropriate place to provide high-quality care for older people in need of support to recuperate after a spell in hospital”. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 9 January 2023
  17. News Article
    Woodside Care Village in Warwick is staged like a town centre in miniature, with benches and a fountain, cafe tables and front doors to homes styled as either “town”, “country” or “classical”. But none of the places are quite what they seem, because here everything has a greater purpose: to improve the wellbeing of people with dementia. Modelled on a groundbreaking Dutch experiment in looking after people with Alzheimer’s disease, the purpose-built facility, which opened in 2019, is quietly breaking new ground for a better kind of dementia care. “Everything is dressed and staged to look familiar,” said Jo Cheshire, the communications manager for the home’s operator, WCS. “We try to make sure people aren’t severing their links with the past. We have one lady who works in the launderette with a badge, because that’s what she did before. It feels like they are contributing to the community.” “The idea is you have freedom,” said Cheshire. “If you come upon a locked door it can increase agitation, that’s unsettling for the other residents and it makes the carer’s job harder.” Staff ratios are higher than normal, at two staff for every five or six people rather than the usual one. This means staff can spend more time interacting with the residents. Staff are briefed with a “this is me” document, which details the likes and dislikes of each person with dementia and has photos through their lives, the time they like to get up, when they like to eat. A clinical trial of such “person-centred” dementia care in 69 care homes in London and Buckinghamshire published in 2020 showed that it improved quality of life for people with dementia and reduced agitation and the burden of depression or aggression. It also reduced hospital and GP visits. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 30 December 2022
  18. News Article
    The government has proposed new legislation to make patient visiting a legal right and also give the Care Quality Commission (CQC) fresh powers to enforce it. The Department of Health and Social Care has launched a consultation to seek views from patients, care home residents, families, professionals and providers on the introduction of new legislation which will require health and care settings, including hospitals, to accommodate visitors in most circumstances. It said the new visiting laws will also provide the CQC with a “clearer basis for identifying where hospitals and care homes are not meeting the required standard”, and enable it to enforce the standards by issuing requirement or warning notices, imposing conditions, suspending a registration or cancelling a registration. It said although the CQC currently has powers “to clamp down on unethical visiting restrictions”, the expected standard of visiting rules is not “specifically outlined in regulations”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 21 June 2023
  19. News Article
    The depth of suffering in care homes in England as Covid hit has been laid bare in a court case exposing “degrading” treatment with residents being “catastrophically let down”. Care levels at the Temple Court care home in Kettering collapsed so badly in April 2020, when ministers rushed to free up NHS capacity by discharging thousands of people, that residents were left lying in their own faeces, dehydrated, malnourished and suffering necrotic, infected wounds, the Care Quality Commission found. Fifteen of its residents died with Covid in the first weeks of the pandemic. The case foreshadows the UK Covid-19 public inquiry module on the care sector, which next year will test Matt Hancock’s claim to have thrown “a protective ring around social care”. The prosecution resulted in a £120,000 fine handed down at Northampton magistrates court last week. The operator, Amicura, apologised but said it had been “acting in the national interest and supporting the NHS by accepting patients discharged from hospitals into care homes under government policy”. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 29 May 2023
  20. News Article
    Experts are calling for "do not resuscitate" orders to be scrapped, saying they are being misused and putting people's lives at risk. One woman told BBC News that her elderly father might still be alive if the DNR in his medical file had been properly checked. When Robert Murray began choking on a piece of fruit at breakfast, staff at his care home called 999. He'd stopped breathing and the ambulance service operator immediately sent paramedics to attend. But seconds later, the care home told the dispatcher that the 80-year-old had a do not resuscitate form (DNR) in his medical records. The paramedics were stood down. Mr Murray died minutes later. However, it was all a terrible mistake. It hadn't been made clear to the ambulance service that Mr Murray was choking - the DNR was only meant to apply should he have a cardiac arrest. Mr Murray's death, at a nursing home in Eastbourne in June 2021, is an example of what experts call "mission creep" in the use of DNR - also known as DNACPR (Do Not Attempt Cardiac Pulmonary Resuscitation) - decisions. Researchers from Essex University say some care home residents are "being inappropriately denied transfer to hospital or access to certain medicines" due to the recommendations. Read full story Source: BBC News, 16 May 2023
  21. News Article
    A care home manager said it had become an "impossibility" to get NHS dentists to visit her elderly residents when they needed treatment. Liz Wynn, of Southminster Residential Home, near Maldon in Essex, said she had battled for years for site visits. It comes as a health watchdog revealed that 25% of care home providers said their patients were denied dental care. NHS Mid and South Essex said it was considering a number of approaches to improve access for housebound patients. Ms Wynn said the shortage of NHS community dentists available to come into the home to carry out check-ups and treatment had been an "on-going concern" for almost 10 years. Ms Wynn said the home relied on its oral care home procedures - such as checking residents' mouths daily - to prevent problems from escalating. However, she said while its residents were "our family", conditions such as dementia made it difficult to spot when patients were in pain. She also said poor dental hygiene in the elderly could result in a number of potentially life-threatening infections. Read full story Source: BBC News, 24 April 2023
  22. News Article
    Trust in care homes has slumped, leaving half of the British public lacking confidence that friends or family would be well looked after. Nationwide polling for the Guardian revealed 9 out of 10 older people believe there are not enough care staff, and half have lost confidence in the standard of care homes since the start of the pandemic. The survey conducted by Ipsos this month follows a doubling in public dissatisfaction in the NHS and exposes deepening fears about the fitness of a social care sector that had its weaknesses exposed by Covid-19, which claimed 36,000 lives in care homes in England alone. The Relatives and Residents Association (RRA) said the polling tallied with calls to its helpline about the “harm and anguish caused by poor care and frustration at the inconsistency in standards”. “We must weed out the poor providers and invest in skills – care workers must become our most valued workers, not the least,” said Helen Wildbore, the RRA’s chief executive. “Tomorrow, any one of us could need them.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 24 April 2023
  23. News Article
    A company which ran children's homes where residents were systemically abused also failed to prevent adults being harmed, BBC News has learned. An investigation found 99 cases of abuse at a Doncaster home for vulnerable adults in 2010. One worker even ordered a Taser to use there. The care home company - Hesley - said improvements were made at the time. But children at other Hesley homes were later reported to have been punched, kicked and fed chillies. The BBC reported in January how more than 100 reports of appalling abuse and neglect - dating from 2018 to 2021 - were uncovered at sites run by the Hesley Group. They included children being locked outside in freezing temperatures while naked, and having vinegar poured on wounds. Now the BBC has obtained confidential reports from within Hesley and the local authority which reveal wider safeguarding failings spanning more than a decade at both children's homes and placements for vulnerable young adults. Read full story Source: BBC News, 14 April 2023
  24. News Article
    Many care home staff worked extra hours without extra pay to prop up the system during the pandemic, a study suggests. Public money helped stabilise UK care homes during the first wave of Covid-19 but it was withdrawn too soon and not focused on staff, says the research, led by Warwick Business School. The researchers studied the accounts of more than 4,000 UK care home companies, from just before the pandemic and during the first year of the health crisis. They found nearly two thirds (60%) of care homes were already financially fragile as the pandemic took hold. The report concludes: "The decision by government to end financial support for care home companies after the peak of the pandemic had passed has likely contributed to the current financial and operational difficulties experienced by the sector." It states the financial plight of many staff and the immense pressure they were under "means it is not surprising the care home sector has struggled to both recruit and retain staff once lockdown restrictions were removed and the wider economy re-opened". Read full story Source: BBC News, 12 April 2023
  25. News Article
    Some of Britain’s most vulnerable children are being moved to care homes more than 300 miles away from the neighbourhoods they grew up in, according to an Observer investigation revealing a “national scandal”. The shocking figures make clear for the first time the scale of the crisis that has long worried child welfare experts. They show dozens of children from London alone are in foster or care homes more than 250 miles from the city, as councils battle a significant shortfall in provision. Children from the capital have been placed in homes near Perth, Glasgow, Knowsley, Leeds and Carlisle. Care experts said that the pattern is being repeated across the country, removing children from critical support networks and familiar surroundings. About 600 children from London are in foster or residential care more than 50 miles from their home neighbourhoods. Councils have warned they often have to compete for limited places, and face “rising costs and profiteering on the backs of vulnerable children”. Some children need to be placed in certain locations for their own safety. However, there is widespread acceptance that the care system is failing to provide enough appropriate places in the right areas. Experts warn that relocating children removed them from schools, friends and extended family, as well as clubs and activities that were often key to their wellbeing. They warned it also put some at greater risk of exploitation. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 3 April 2023
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