Care home providers need to be able to measure performance effectively, but are still in the dark in the ongoing absence of a government ratings system, Laing & Buisson has stated.
The healthcare intelligence provider said despite health secretary Jeremy Hunt promising an Ofsted-style ratings system, there was currently no accessible way to monitor performance.
It added it was essential that commissioners and providers coudl seek answers to key questions on performance of care homes and compare.
Justin Merritt, director of Laing & Buisson, said: "While we wait to hear more on the government's proposed Ofsted-styled solution, providers remain in the dark as to how their fare against their peers and commissioners remain in the dark when it comes to the overall performance of one provider group over another."
Laing & Buisson's recently-launched Care Compliance Monitor: Care Homes performance monitor is the first tool to measure performance for two years.
The quarterly data from the performance monitoring tool published today shows results for the top ten providers by size; the tool has also been updated to include the latest available Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection ratings.
The percentage of homes for providers that were fully compliant against five markers of measure ranged from 66.9% to 83.2% while the average came out at 76.4%.
Bupa Care Homes was the largest provider with 18,258 beds and 257 care homes; 76.8% of its homes inspected were fully compliant.
Laing & Buisson will be building on the tool this summer with a sister product to monitor inspection results across providers of domiciliary care services.
Laing & Buisson said comparing performance without exhausting research was essential for commissioners and providers alike, with easy ability to manipulate data to compile league tables.
Tim Anstee, partner at The Wealthcare Partnership, said: "The star system we had two years ago stopped as purely a cust cutting measure for the Care Quality Commission. People do need to know more about the quality of care homes but we have to be pragmatic and the cost saving is important.
"But there is a whole service out there that needs providing because there is a lot of mis-information that si put out there."
The Wealthcare Partnership is re-writing a guide for clients that includes checklists of what to look out for when visiting care homes.
It also has a joint initiative with third party Grace Consulting that offers support services to those searching for the right care home.
