Is the care home market heading for a crash?

[nitram]

"I don't think care homes will ever be considered too big to fail."

Did you mean 'will be considered too big to fail', and like the banks would have to be bailed out?

 

[Kevinl]

In Northern Ireland the Health and Social Care Board (the NI equivalent of the NHS) announced it was going to close 10 of its 19 homes and started the 12 week consultation prior to making the staff redundant. The in November Four Seasons Health Care (a private company) announced it was going to close seven of its care homes in Northern Ireland sending the government into a flap and forcing them to halt their planned home closures. What would happen in your local area if 300 or 400 care home places were to disappear?
Four Seasons say "the homes were “operating at a loss and no longer viable”. “We have [in effect] been paying a subsidy for them to continue to provide care" how many care home in the rest of the UK are in a similar position or only keeping it together by using the self funders higher rate to subsides the LA rates.
For example if I had a small 20 bed home and 10 patients were LA funded at £500 a week each and the other 10 were self funding at £750 a week I'd be turning over £12,500 a week, if I could fill the home with self funders I'd be turning over and extra £2,500 a week (or £130,000 a year!!!).
K

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/n...ans-to-shut-staterun-facilities-34229415.html

 

[Witzend]

There is actually a large new care home under construction near me now. I think it's under the banner of Care UK, and down to open in the spring.
The site was a former petrol station on a busy road and was left derelict for ages, all manner of vegetation gaily sprouting up through the concrete. I was convinced it would eventually be flats, property prices being what they are around here (crazy).

 

[MrsTerryN]

Note I am in Australia. The rules changed July 2014. Mum is in old scheme.
Everybody must pay the daily fee about $48 . Maximum rate pensioners would still have funds over
Mum pays that plus the means teated fee. So between the two she pays about $110 a day. The government make up the rest.
The new scheme is different isofar as you can pay substantially more but there is a cap which if you are paying max rate kicks in at the 2 year mark.
My cynicism was that the average stay in a nursing home was 2 years .
Also if you have a home or funds you can pay a refundable bond,mums was $500000, or pay an extra non refundable levy.
There is no interest earned by the lodger on the bond. The nursing home receives it

 

[fizzie]

They won't be allowed to fail - the Government would bail them out but I think there is a real danger that the already poor standards will become worse. The care home owners are in it for money not the love of what they do and they will not allow rises in market prices to eat into their profits. Care homes will become bigger and immediately the quality goes down, the staff will become more and more stretched, there will be more and more safeguarding issues which will not be dealt with because of the cuts in social services (who aren't much cop anyway). I think the future looks gloomy.

Now if the Government invested in more extra extra care housing small flats with care teams on site owned and run by LAs then they might be onto a winner with happier 'residents', happier carers and less financial burden - but of course th Governments, whoever they are never look long term only as far as their term of office and their popularity

 

[mancmum]

What is the difference between dementia and care for those with autism

My son works as a carer in a high quality facility for people with autism. The staffing level sounds as though it is at least 2 to 1 and 3 to 1 at times. The place is highly commended but the behaviour that he is dealing with doesn't sound much different from the descriptions of dementia that carer's detail on this site. But of course most people with dementia are old.. maybe that's the reason.

 

[fizzie]

The biggest difference there is that care in a care home is sometimes as much as 12 to 1. i rest my case - staffing levels are the biggest cut they can make and they do it all the time - and at night it is even worse!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Witzend]

The LA's are becoming a lot shrewder with the deprivation of assets rules just look at the 2014 regulations, what may have worked in the past won't necessarily work in the future. It's spread all over here and the finance pages of any newspaper how to go about "protecting an inheritance" companies specialise in doing it, how much longer will it last? Not long in my opinion.
K

I've seen a lot on other forums and in the press about protecting inheritances against care home fees. A lot of people seem to think it's a simple matter - you tuck the money away and when they think it's time for Granny to go into a care home, bingo, the council picks up the tab.
They don't seem to realise that it's rarely that easy, even without the deprivation of assets question. Just because the family think it's time for a CH, it doesn't mean that social services will agree. They may well have to get to desperation/exhaustion point, and maybe even then SS will find reasons to disagree that its necessary.

As far as I'm concerned, having been through it all twice, being self funded, being able to choose the time and place, is a luxury this family has been profoundly grateful for.

 

[MrsTerryN]

I am so glad there is enough money and income for mum to be in a good nursing home