Growing numbers of older people face increasingly high care home fees to subsidise the lower fees paid by councils for those who cannot afford to pay, a leading charity has warned.
Last year about 167,000 care home residents across the UK were meeting the cost of their own care, up by 29% on the 130,000 who did so in 2005. Now, 41% of all those receiving residential care are self-funders.
They pay between £603 and £867 a week for their care, depending on where in the UK they are, whereas councils pay much less – between £421 and £624 a week – for those whom they support.
Age UK fears that the declining number of care homes and beds available means that some elderly people going into residential accommodation receive “a raw deal” when they or their family negotiate the fees for their stay.
“We are worried that too many older people who pay for their own care are getting a raw deal and are unfairly being asked to pay the price for a failing care system,” said Caroline Abrahams, Age UK’s charity director.
“They not only often face eye-wateringly high weekly rates, calls to our helpline show that some are being asked to pay even more in ways that most of us would regard as ‘sharp practice’, as care homes struggle to keep the lights on,” she said.
Age UK cited the example of a woman in residential care who has Alzheimer’s disease who was billed for “an entertainer”, though her daughter said that her mother neither wanted nor received that service. Despite raising concern about it with the care home and being assured that it was a one-off charge, the woman had been billed a second time for “an entertainer”.
The charity is also worried about how few legal rights residents have and fear that this situation, combined with the shortage of care home places, can deter them or their relatives from complaining. “It seems crazy that a hale and hearty 30-year-old who rents a flat enjoys more security of tenure than an 80-year-old with dementia and diabetes who lives in a care home,” added Abrahams.
The number of beds in residential homes in England fell from 255,289 in 2010 to 235,799 last month, though the supply of nursing home beds rose from 205,375 to 224,843 over the same period, the Care Quality Commission revealed last week in its annual report.
