Audits reveal retirement homes' true colours

Eighteen Canterbury rest homes have had their performance assessments made public, including one that has problems in two key standards.

The Brookhaven Retirement Village in Bromley has been identified as having two areas with major shortfalls, with "significant action needed to achieve the required levels of performance".

Since June, summaries of rest-home audits have appeared on the Ministry of Health website, with 120 published so far.

All rest homes are audited against certain standards and are given a certificate that lasts from one to five years.

Homes are given a colour ranking covering six standards. Blue shows the home is exceeding some levels of performance, green means no shortfalls, yellow means minor shortfalls and red indicates major shortfalls and significant work needed.

The most prevalent colour in Canterbury's reports is yellow, with plenty of green and just a few blues and reds.

Avonlea Dementia Care had the top report.

It has been certified for the next four years and achieved five out of six "exceeds".

Director Alison Hume said she was delighted with the home's result, and she welcomed the ministry's decision to publish audits.

The Ngaio Marsh Retirement Village also scored well, with two blue rankings and three green.

Brookhaven was certified for just two years and had two standards marked red, including that of providing a "safe and appropriate environment".

Brookhaven management did not respond to requests for comment.

Canterbury District Health Board member Andrew Dickerson said entering a rest home was one of the most important decisions people would make in their lifetime, but there was hardly any information available to help them to make their decision.

Information on the ministry website was a "tentative, timid baby step".

"The Government spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year on residential care for the elderly and yet the information available to the public on where this money is spent and the standard of care available in different facilities is very sparse indeed," he said.

He was concerned about the standard of care at some Canterbury facilities.

Ministry quality and safety manager Rose Wall said any home with partial attainment or non-compliance would have conditions imposed.

Age Concern was doing a survey of people's views on the reports published so far, Wall said.

Changes would be made based on their feedback.

Health Care Providers New Zealand chief executive Martin Taylor said rest homes backed the move to make audit information available, but he was concerned about some anomalies in reporting.

Some homes were receiving "partially achieved" for minor problems such as getting a date wrong on a form, while others were not achieving in critical areas, but both received a yellow ranking.

"It does need to be ironed out so that it's more indicative of what goes on," Taylor said.