Those of us who have direct experience of residential care know the benefits of a system that supports, enables and delivers independence to some of the most vulnerable people in our community.  Our challenge is to get that message across to the public and to make care understood and valued.

How different the reality of care is from the endless soundbites and negative publicity that we are assailed with daily.  There is a sad reality facing the care sector and that is for some reason we have become the target of a media campaign that only seeks to present negative images and undermine our users, our services and our staff.

One of the areas that is still of great concern to me is the public perception of our sector and the negativity that always ensues whenever a care home story is highlighted in the press.  The unbalanced, subjective and in some cases downright dishonest reporting of residential care leads me to believe we need to go on the offensive with positive stories.

This sector has much to champion and much to celebrate and this is validated by CSCI reports that have talked about increasing numbers of care services providing high quality care.  Of course this message is totally obscured by biased reporting and by the few poor quality providers who do a disservice to their clients and who tarnish the reputation of a sector that is doing amazing work with little acknowledgement and on the most meagre of resources. 

It is for all these reasons and to redress the balance of how care is reported that a range of important stakeholders have come together to form the Quality Care Campaign.  Our interest is not only rebalancing the way we are perceived in the media but it also about adding our voice to those who are not prepared to collude with poor quality providers.  Eradicating bad services is in all our interests.  We stand for quality.  We invest in it and we deliver it and we have got to see a system where there are no hiding places for poor quality services and a system in which commissioners commission quality care at a fair price rather than following the cheapest option.

Changing media perceptions is a formidable mountain that we have to climb and the only way we will reach the summit is by joining together in partnership with our residents, their carers and each other and every time the flames of hysteria are whipped up by the media we must extinguish them by putting out positive messages and by showing the world we have quality services. 

Martin Green
Chief Executive
English Community Care Association