CASH SHORTAGE CAUSING A CRISIS
Pressure on services after fall in number of beds across the region
FUNDING SHORTAGES and difficulties recruiting key staff are leading to a worsening crisis in nursing home bed provision in Yorkshire.
Figures show there are fewer than 22,000 beds in the region in the wake of a six per cent fall in the two years to March – a rate of loss which if repeated in Yorkshire’s hospitals which would be equivalent to the closure of all beds at both Airedale and Harrogate hospitals.
The problems are leading to mounting calls for a long-term solution to meet growing demand.
Projections suggest numbers of over-85s – those most likely to need help – will increase 36 per cent in the ten years to 2025 to two million nationwide.
But latest figures from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) show 30 local authorities in England lost more than ten per cent of their nursing home beds between 2015 and 2017 including Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Barnsley, Rotherham and Hull.
In its annual State of Care report, the CQC warns the situation in adult social care services is “precarious”, with no long-term solution in sight to problems including bed numbers, quality, market fragility and local authority funding, as it singles out falling nursing home beds in particular.
Nadra Ahmed, chairman of the National Care Association, representing small and medium-sized providers, said it came as “no surprise” the sector was now at the “edge of an abyss”.
“We need to have an honest discussion about where we are,” she said. “People are living longer but with quite complex needs and we need to debate how we manage that in a health and social care setting.”
Ministers announced an extra £2bn in social care funding by 2020 in March, but much of this is expected to be used to combat the cost of previous cuts linked to austerity – with one estimate claiming council fees for care homes were cut five per cent in real terms from 2011-16 – and the additional costs of the living wage.
Meanwhile, extra costs of social care mount each year, with the council’s bill in Leeds for additional numbers of 85-89-yearolds alone predicted to increase by £800,000 in 2018.
The sector was not mentioned in last month’s Budget, prompting Matt Walsh, chief officer of NHS Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group, to warn colleagues the lack of additional funds “sits uncomfortably with the reality that it is in supporting and developing home care and further strengthening the capability and capacity of the care home market….where the solution lies for some of the pressure on the local NHS”.
Following an inquiry in North Yorkshire, councillors have this month written to Ministers warning of the recruitment problems the county faces in health and social care, calling for better training and skills, additional public funding and clarity of the rights of EU workers post-Brexit.
In an effort to bring long-term stability to the market, some councils have announced longterm fee settlements with providers.
In Hull, numbers of nursing home beds fell 20 per cent in the two years to March. The city’s council, which spent £31m in 2016-17 on nursing and residential care accommodation for 1,500 people, has agreed a new tariff system designed to offer more certainty to providers on future funding for up to ten years.
In Barnsley, where nursing home beds fell 17 per cent following the closure of two large homes, officials are examining new ways to develop the market to meet future demands.
Coun Margaret Bruff, Cabinet spokesman for people, said: “Reductions in nursing beds is an issue for many local authorities and in most areas is due to the recruitment and retention of nurses in the sector.”