It remains sadly too common that private care homes across the UK are run with appalling standards that shame our care services.

Regulators are thin on the ground, but at least one care home has felt the strong arm of the regulator.

“The owners of a care home in East Sussex have been fined nearly £25,000 after environmental health officers found it had become overrun with rats.

“The kitchen and bedrooms of an ‘The Firs’ care home, in Crowhurst, near Battle, showed ‘clear evidence’ of rat infestation, a court heard this week.

“Magistrates heard how officers found plastic sacks of rotting food in the bushes of the home’s driveway, with rat holes underneath, and a garden full of discarded furniture.  The official waste compound was filled with clinical waste bags, with one bin having evidence of rat gnawings.

http://www.24dash.com/news/local_government/2011-05-11-Owners-of-care-home-overrun-with-rats-fined-nearly-25-000

Waste security is too often overlooked at care homes, at GP practices and at hospitals. Regulators generally take little notice, but puff and blow with the “I’m In Charge” attitude though without any significant attempt to drive improvement.

Many care homes and GP surgeries have their clinical waste outside the building, in full view and unsecured.  Patients generating waste in their own homes are told to leave it outside to await collection, while the spat between Local Authorities and care services based on demands that community nurses ‘own’ wastes associated with treating patients in their own home undoubtedly results in much waste being ‘lost’. or is it hidden, in the domestic waste sack.

Hospitals fair no better, with waste stores often comprising an unsecured corner of the care park where waset carts are left unlocked, overflowing and with gaping lids, or side wastes. If waste security is an issue and the health and safety risk is real, and the regulator insists that they are, then why not deal with it?