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Care Home Meltdown Continues Unabated
July 31, 2003 12:01 AM
A record 13,400 care places have been lost in the UK between January '02 and April '03 according to new figures release by Laing and Buisson today. Since 1996, the capacity of the care sector has shrunk by 74,000. The figures also show that closures of homes have outstripped new registrations for the fourth year in a row.
Care Home Closures Continue Unabated
Paul Burstow MP, Liberal Democrat spokesman for older people, who believes a meltdown is already upon the sector, has proposed four points to restore confidence in the sector and halt further closures.
• An urgent review of care home fee levels and their impact on the supply of places.
• An end to the postcode lottery on fees with national standards for setting fee levels linked to demand for care home places and the cost of compliance with new standards.
• An independent review of the compliance costs of new care standards and the impact on the quality of care; and
• All personal and nursing care to be free on the basis of need.
Paul Burstow MP said:
"The care home sector is now in meltdown. Care home-owners are disillusioned, discontented and disaffected, yet Ministers are still in a state of denial about the scale of the crisis.
"These figures show the exodus from the care home market is still accelerating. While Ministers bury their heads in the sand, the victims of these closures are the frail elderly people whose lives are lost through the trauma of an eviction from what they thought was their home for life.
"The shortage of good quality care homes has a knock-on effect on the NHS. Record numbers of care home closures have created a vicious circle in the health and social care sector.
"By ignoring the evidence and denying there is a problem, Ministers now have an enormous job to rebuild confidence in the short term and revitalise the sector for the long term."
ENDS
Notes to editors
Laing and Buisson Care of Elderly People Market Survey 2002 shows that 11,782 care home places have been lost from January 2002 and April 2003.
3. Independent sector, net capacity loss (gain) by region
Capacity (beds) 1 Jan 2002 Capacity (beds) 1 April 2003 % change
Jan 02 - Apr-03 Index of
supply *
North 24,900 24,600 -1.2% 1.18
Yorkshire & Humberside 40,200 38,900 -3.2% 1.10
North West 54,600 52,900 -3.1% 1.15
West Midlands 35,200 34,400 -2.3% 0.97
East Midlands 31,900 31,000 -2.8% 1.09
East Anglia 14,900 14,800 -0.7% 0.90
Northern Home Counties 30,500 30,100 -1.3% 0.86
London 29,400 28,900 -1.7% 0.66
Southern Home Counties 52,800 50,900 -3.6% 0.97
South West 48,200 45,900 -4.8% 1.00
Wales 21,000 20,400 -2.9% 0.99
Scotland 33,800 33,200 -1.8% 1.15
N Ireland 12,300 12,200 -0.8% 1.26
United Kingdom 429,782 418,000 -2.7% 1.00
• Index of supply is the ratio of actual registered beds to the number that would be expected if UK capacity per unit age weighted population were applied to the population of the given region.
Last year Paul Burstow MP forecast that without urgent action the number of care home places would be outstripped by the number of people demanding a bed within 40 months.
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