Crisis looms as care home openings fall to record low
Watchdog highlights loss of almost 23,500 beds as concerns grow over capacity many regions
CARE home closures exceeded openings for the eighth consecutive year in 2019 as the number of new facilities fell to a record low, despite a rapidly ageing population.
There have been more than 600 openings of care homes in England this year, but in excess of 900 closures, leading to a total loss of 23,452 beds, according to data commissioned by The Daily Telegraph from the Care Quality Commission, England’s health and social care watchdog.
The decline in homes being opened is in stark contrast to a decade ago when more than 7,000 sites were introduced and a year later more than 11,000 homes were opened.
Experts said that poorer residents were bearing the brunt of a capacity squeeze as operators prioritise selffunders in affluent areas over loss-making homes in more deprived areas.
At the heart of the problem is a funding shortfall between the lower rates offered to local authorities – which pay for most state-funded residential care for older people – and private players who typically pay 40pc more, according to estimates by healthcare research firm Laingbuisson.
The difference between self-funded and local authority prices means that people who pay for their own care are often charged more to subsidise residents sponsored by councils.
Caroline Abrahams, of the charity
Age UK, said: “It would be of little concern if care home places were being reduced because of a government strategy that ensured people’s needs could be better met in other ways, but that is not what’s going on here at all.
“Instead, the market is voting with its feet and shunning state-funded clients and the places where they predominate in favour of taking on those who can afford to pay, in more affluent parts of the country.”
Fears are growing that homes could struggle to stay afloat in less well-off regions, particularly the Midlands and the north of England. Laingbuisson founder William Laing, said: “Smaller care homes are slowly exiting the market, and prudent investors have put a block on new development until more realistic fees are on offer.
“For now, the whole system will just about hang together. But as demand rises – which we believe it will – the system will run towards a disorderly series of local capacity crises and sudden price shocks.”
Laing added that many councils were feeling the pressure. “Some local authorities are already finding it harder to make local placements. Local authorities will be forced to pay more – sometimes a lot more.”
Boris Johnson has pledged £5bn extra cash to social care and has promised to create a new funding structure for social care within five years. During his election campaign the Prime Minister also vowed to “end the injustice” of older people selling their homes to pay for social care services. It followed repeated delays to the publication of the Government’s social care green paper.
Ms Abrahams said: “Restoring social care to a level of decency right across the land needs to be central to the new government’s ambitions to strengthen our national infrastructure.”