§ Mr. BurstowTo ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the answer of 18 March 2002, ref 43898, on National Care Standards, how many and what percentage of care homes have completed their(a) application for registration, (b) statement of purpose and (c) application for registration; and what enforcement action the Commission can take if compliance with these standards is not achieved. [45659]
§ Jacqui SmithAs of 1 April 2002 the National Care Standards Commission had received approximately 2,500 applications from providers and managers who were required to apply for registration by that date. It is not possible to say how many of these applications are from care homes since the commission is still assessing from which service areas the applications originated and the associated documentation with them.
Providers who have submitted their application for registration will be given protection from section 11(1) of the Care Standards Act until their application can be processed by the commission. Providers who failed to submit their application for registration by 31 March are committing an offence under section 11(1), of the Act. However, before taking prosecution action as set out at section 11(5), we would expect the commission to take account of the circumstances as to why an application was not made.