The country’s highest paid care home boss took home a £250,000 pay rise last year as his frontline workers faced one of the toughest years on barely over the minimum wage.
Barchester Healthcare chief executive Dr Pete Calveley received a boost of 9.35% in 2020 as he planned to put fees up by around 10%.
That means Mr Calveley took home £2.27million that year - around 130 times more than some of the carers who worked for him on the frontline during the pandemic.
His latest increase was awarded despite more than one in ten of the firm's homes being rated 'requires improvement' by the Care Quality Commission, a report by the Mail found.
One Suffolk home was reportedly downgraded to 'inadequate' by the care watchdog after dementia sufferers were left unsupervised and residents who were at risk of self-harming were 'left for extended periods of time' on their own.
Staff also reportedly left a resident who was at 'high risk of strangulation' unsupervised for long periods around visible wires.
Last night critics branded Barchester 'morally unacceptable' for paying the eye-watering rise while hiking fees for residents.
Former care minister Sir Noman Lamb said it “beggars belief that Barchester can think it appropriate to give this scale of salary increase to their CEO, who is already paid an obscene amount”.
Barchester Healthcare Limited – which operates 200 homes - is majority-owned by three Irish billionaires - Dermot Desmond, John Magnier and JP McManus.
Last year, its earnings rose by £16.3million to £212.2million in 2020. Latest documents filed with Companies House reveal it also took £12.6million in government grants.
In a letter to residents and relatives last month, Dr Calveley reportedly said the firm was looking to increase fees by 9.35% next year.
While contracts outline a maximum increase of 5.9% per year, a loophole allows this to rise further if there are “major Government interventions leading to a significant and demonstrable increase in our costs or taxes”.
Dr Calveley listed a surge in gas prices, furniture costs and an expected 10% inflation in the cost of food among the reasons for the rise.
He said while Barchester is looking to 'mitigate' the costs, they are 'fundamental to delivering great care...which is not something we can compromise on'.
He also cited the National Living Wage, an increase to National Insurance and wage inflation due to 'competition' for staff.
Of the group's 198 homes listed on the CQC website, 27 are rated 'requires improvement' in addition to the one deemed 'inadequate'.
Eileen Chubb, director of campaign group Compassion in Care, said the pay rise was 'unacceptable', adding: “We need to stop rewarding failure.”
There are almost 800 jobs advertised on Barchester's website, some at £9 per hour.
Staff on this rate doing a 37.5-hour-week would earn £17,550 a year - less than 1% of Dr Calveley's pay.
A Barchester spokesperson said: “Barchester focuses on offering the best quality care and employing the best teams to deliver that care. Dr Calveley has for the third time been voted Outstanding Leader by his peers, at the HealthInvestor Power Fifty awards, a testament to the respect in which he is held in the sector.
"The Care Quality Commission have in 2021 rated 84.9% of Barchester’s services as “Good” or “Outstanding”, with nursing services rated some 5.7% higher than the CQC benchmark. This reflects our focus on providing the highest quality care for our residents with continuous year-on-year improvement in the regulators overall ratings of Barchester’s services over a period of 6.5 years since Pete has been CEO.
"In his time as CEO we have improved, from below 40% of services being rated good and outstanding to over double that at 85.6%. This reflects the work of all of our staff and particularly our dedicated carers and nursing staff who alongside Pete and the exec team are completely focused on continuing to improve every home in every region for our residents, and who have worked relentlessly to protect our residents and patients throughout the pandemic.
"We are currently an above national minimum wage and national living wage employer and have been awarded ‘Best Company’ accreditation in each of the last 2 years (being the only one of the large healthcare providers to have received such accreditation), in recognition of the regard that staff have for the business as an employer.
"Barchester invests significant amounts back into the homes - in the six years from 2015 to 2020 inclusive, Barchester has invested a total of some £56 million in Capital Expenditure on property and improvements of its services, in order to ensure that residents are living and staff are working in the best possible conditions.”
