Care UK

Suffolk County Council is taking a zero tolerance approach with regard to shortcomings at the new Care UK care homes in Mildenhall and Ipswich.

The Leader of the Council, Mark Bee, called the management of Care UK into Endeavour House yesterday for a meeting at which the council's high expectations of our care home providers were reiterated.  We will not be sending any more people to the homes until we are happy that all is as it should be, and it is possible that future openings of homes might be delayed.

Officers from Adult and Community Services were very quick to get onto the case as soon as problems at the homes were detected by the Quality Care Commission.   The incident demonstrates how very important it is to make sure that when services are outsourced the local authority retains sufficient capacity to maintain an element of control at all times.   This is not 'keeping a dog and barking oneself', but good commissioning practice.

The contract with Care UK has meant that the council has been able to provide several new, state of the art, care homes for our residents.  We would never have been able to afford these out of our own resources.  Although inevitably we will be criticised by those who believe that public services should never be delivered by the private sector, I believe that despite the current problems (which will be short lived) this was the right long term decision for our most vulnerable residents.