Someone needs to create a kind of JSON for care homes, if you will. Something like a super simple spec of what a goddamned care home object is for, and the minimum number of actually fairly-paid full-time staff one needs to achieve that in practice.

Then it doesn't matter how many baroque shell companies it takes represent the thing internally. Either the thing can output a response in Care Home Object Notation, or it's just a bunch of crafty bullshit disguised as a care home.

You'd just walk in with your one-page CHOM spec and read down the sheet: "Number 1: Can I speak to a full-time nurse, please?" If they respond, "No, but here's two high-school interns in a trench coat," you can just be like, "Not a care home. Got it," and move on to the next one.

Once upon a time, I heard someone tell me a fairytale about this thing called a ‘law' and they said that laws could be used to enforce compliance with standards across an entire country. Pure fantasy I know, but a man can dream.

I emphasize that I'm not excusing the stories of clear mistreatment in the source article. But the central challenge is that this kind of care is incredibly expensive, which poses awkward and sometimes brutal tradeoffs that people often don't want to honestly discuss.

For example, the article blazes past a claim that £550/week/bed was too little to provide good care, but a super simple spec suggests it might be. Subtract the UK average rent of £1367/4 = £342, divide the remaining £208 by a fully-loaded nurse cost of ~£20/hr * 1.3 * 168, and even with no other costs you're left with a completely inadequate 1 hour of nurse time per resident per day. But if Guy Hands had produced a worksheet like this proving that pumping more taxpayer money into his pockets would achieve adequate staffing ratios, would that make even a single person more willing to do it?

in the US a sickening % of marketing for SNFs is actually describing state-mandated requirements. "...and we even have a community led residents' association!"

depends on your state ofc. none of them are a single page tmk. this makes sense, regulations are famously written in blood. don't do this if you're unprepared to be in a terrible mood, ofc.