Controversy Over New Care Standards Act

From April 2002, independent care services in England and Wales will be regulated by a new body. The National Care Standards Commission will take over this role from some 100 health authority units. The Governments objective is to raise the consistency and quality of care services standards. The NCSC will regulate independent health care providers against a series of national minimum standards. The first set of standards applies to homes providing accommodation, nursing and personal care for older people. Home owners across the country are, however, concerned by the implications associated with implementing some of the standards.

Most controversy centres on the standards relating to the living environment. In particular, standard 22.2 states, "Service users must have access to all parts of the service users communal and private space through the provision of ramps and passenger lifts, where required to achieve this." In itself, this statement does not present a problem. It is the NCSC's definition of a passenger lift that does. The NCSC states, "A passenger lift is a vertical means of transport between floors. A chair/stair lift is not a passenger lift." Many care home owners, whose buildings are already equipped with chair/stair lifts, interpret this to mean that they will be required to install a conventional eight person passenger lift. Naturally, some fear that the constraints of their building will make this impossible and drive them out of business.

However, there is an alternative solution that meets the NCSC's minimum standard. For many years platform lifts have been used to provide an alternative means of access, for the less able, to premises offering services to the public. The Disability Discrimination Act has led to a recent upsurge in the installation of platform lifts, as owners and operators modify their premises to comply with this legislation.

A platform lift complies with the NCSC definition because it is a means of vertical transport between floors. Unlike a passenger lift, a platform lift has no lift car. It consists of a platform which moves within a stationary shaft. Most platform lifts are supplied as completely self-contained units, do not need a wall or additional structure for support and usually require little or no modification to the existing building. This makes them unobtrusive and their installation very cost effective. They may well be a more practical solution for many care home owners.

Platform lifts, especially those that travel more than two metres, have to comply with a host of national building regulations and EEC legislation to ensure their safety. Features such as platform size, travel speed, controls and emergency procedures are governed by the legislation. Whilst this legislation is aimed at the needs of the disabled, it is, arguably, equally valid for the care services environment.

It may be that care home owners need not contemplate closing their homes, because of not being able to comply with standard 22.2. A platform lift would appear to offer a viable means of achieving compliance if a conventional passenger lift is not feasible.