New figures on empty care homes should ring ‘alarm bells’
New figures on the number of empty care home beds should be ‘ringing alarm bells’ in the government, providers warn.
The number of care home residents has fallen by around 8% since before the pandemic, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
ICG Chair Mike Padgham said: ‘This doesn’t come as a surprise, but alarm bells should be ringing in Whitehall. Care homes are in a very precarious position, but the Government still insists there is no funding crisis in the sector. Covid-19 devastated bed occupancy. There was tragic loss of life and after its peak homes were restricted in taking new admissions as Covid breakouts continued.
‘Now, admission levels are struggling to recover because confidence has been affected. At the same time, the sector is going through a staffing crisis with many providers in both care and nursing homes, and in home care, struggling to fill shifts.
‘And now rocketing bills, including gas and electric, are placing huge financial pressures on those homes. All in all, this is a terrible time for the social care sector – the worst I have known in more than 33 years providing care.’
Social care currently looks after 400,000 people in care and nursing homes – equating to three times the number of NHS hospital beds. Social care also looks after a further 640,000 people in their own homes.
Padgham warns that care providers will go out of business, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without the care they need, uncles social care gets its share of the Health and Social Care Levy proceeds quickly.
The ICG also wants to see:
- A root and branch overhaul of the way social care is planned and funded
- NHS care and social care merged and managed locally or nationally
- Extra funding for social care, funded by taxation
- Dementia treated and funded like other high priority illnesses
- A fixed percentage of GDP to be spent on social care
- Proper pay, conditions and career structure for carers
- Social care businesses to be zero-rated for VAT.
Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger