A private firm involved in providing care homes for older people has been told it must improve its performance across the board or face penalties that could include the revocation of its license.
Esperi Care, which runs care facilities in municipalities across Finland, could be fined or have its licence revoked if it doesn’t fix failings across its elderly care home provision.
This is the first time the National Supervisory Authority for Health and Welfare, Valvira, has made such a broad ruling against a provider of care for older people, according to Valvira official Elina Uusitalo.
“This illustrates what a difficult situation there has been in elder care,” said Uusitalo. “Big care providers have been under supervision before too, but this is the first time that the whole division providing this type of care has been assessed, not just an individual unit or facility.”
Vavira says that Esperi Care has failed to fix problems that severely endangered customer safety in recent years.
Last week another care firm, Attendo, was threatened with fines totalling 350,000 euros if it did not improve staffing ratios to legally-mandated levels at one facility in Muurala, Eastern Finland.