Room for improvement at city's senior homes

There’s room for improvement at some of the city’s 500 senior homes, according to the results of an inspection by Shanghai's civil affairs authorities released on Thursday.

A monitoring system ranks the quality of senior care service providers as excellent, good, moderate or bad, based on 50 categories, Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau said.

The average score of the city's senior homes was 77.9 this year, or good, 5.1 points higher than last year, and 216, or 36 percent, were rated as excellent.

Xuhui District No. 2 Social Welfare Institution had the highest score.

Another 264, or 44 percent, were rated as good. 

Seven were rated bad, with Kangnaixin Senior Home in Yangpu District, Haijiang Ruixiang Senior Home in Hongkou District and Yikang Senior Home in Baoshan District at the bottom of the list.

Senior homes in Xuhui, Jing'an and Jiading districts had the best service quality based on average scores, according to the bureau. 

Those in Fengxian and Qingpu districts had made the biggest progress. 

The rating system covers all senior homes in operation in Shanghai, excluding those operating for less than a year, those scoring excellent last year, and those undergoing renovations, the bureau said. The ratings were compiled by 109 inspectors.

Categories with the poorest results included those covering the use of medical oxygen cylinders, safety measures such as emergency evacuation signs, and the proper use of cleaning tools and their hygiene, according to the bureau. 

Those found with bad scores have been ordered to make changes and will be re-inspected.

The results, indicated by a large smiling face, a smiling face, flat face and crying face, are displayed at senior care service venues, the bureau said.