The cash crunch facing Britain’s care homes is starting to have an impact on the quality of care being provided to the elderly, a leading figure in the sector has warned.
The boss of Care England, the independent body that represents care homes, said a warning from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) that two out of five homes are below standard signalled a significant worsening of the industry’s problems.
Care home operators are being squeezed by a rise in staff costs and fall in the fees local authorities pay towards patients. Until now businesses have insisted that the quality of care they provide has not been affected by the financial pressure.
But Andrea Sutcliffe, the CQC’s chief inspector for adult social care, told the Telegraph that the regulator’s State of Care report has found a third of Britain’s 18,000 homes require improvement and 7% are inadequate.
“This is probably the start of a really serious issue for the care industry,” said the chief executive of Care England, Martin Green.
Green said it was impossible to guarantee high-quality care given the financial constraints the industry is facing and urged the CQC to clarify how much local authorities needed to pay to guarantee satisfactory care levels.
Green said the CQC is “not set up to monitor the really big elephant in the room: commissioning and fees”.
He added: “There is a point at which you can’t provide quality care beyond a certain price. You can’t provide quality for £2.16 an hour [in local authority fees] no matter who you are.”
The comments come after the owner of Four Seasons, Britain’s biggest care home group, warned that he would have to close or sell homes unless the government stepped in.
Guy Hands, the chairman of private equity firm Terra Firma, which owns Four Seasons, told the Guardian: “We can’t continue to operate 25% [of homes] at a loss. It just doesn’t make sense.
“Yes, I think inevitably we will have to sell homes, some of which will stay as nursing homes, but some of which will end up closed and changing their use. It’s not something we want to do. You can’t just close a home, you have to think about the residents.
“For the last three years we have assumed the government would look at the economic effect of their policy and make a decision. I don’t think the effects will be felt this winter, but next April or May is when you will see care homes closing or for sale.”
