Two councils increase fees to care homes ramping up pressure on other local authorities

Two councils have taken the decision to up their fees to care homes for state-funded residents, ramping up pressure on other local authorities to follow suit.

Gwynedd Council in Wales has put aside an extra £1.6m to pay for the hike in fees for residential care and nursing care, with increases of up to 25 per cent.

Essex County Council, has also put aside £1.5m to cover an increase in care home fees for state-funded residents and for a rise in fees to home care providers, to help with the costs of rising inflation and fuel costs.

The increase for care homes is permanent and for home care it is temporary to help alleviate the huge rise in petrol costs.

From July 2022, the weekly rate for residential care home placements in Essex will rise by 0.75 per cent capped at £690.90 a week and £841.26 a week for nursing care placements. Home care providers in Essex will see an increase of 12p per hour until April 2023.

Care Forum Wales, which represents care homes in Wales, has called the rise by Gwynedd Council a “victory for common sense”.

Until now Gwynedd has worked closely with other North Wales councils when calculating the fees for care homes and nursing homes. But Gwynedd councillors have voted in favour of “stepping away from the north Wales standard fees”.

As a result, the weekly fee per person for residential EMI care in Gwynedd has increased by 19.8 per cent to £780 while the rate for nursing EMI care has gone up by 24.7 per cent to £900.

That means funding for nursing EMI in Gwynedd is now £5,124 more a year per person than for exactly the same level of care across the Menai Suspension bridge in Anglesey.

For a 40-bed care home, which is the average size in Wales, that’s a difference of £204,960 a year between the two counties separated by the Menai Strait.

Mary Wimbury, chief executive of Care Forum Wales, said: “We are grateful to the councillors in Gwynedd for acknowledging their responsibilities and adopting a more realistic approach to setting fee levels to reflect the real costs of providing care.

“This decision is hugely significant because it hopefully signals the end of the iniquitous North South divide in social care.

“Apart from Gwynedd, all the other North Wales councils are lagging way behind in terms of fees, compared to authorities in South East Wales.”

She added: “The fact that Gwynedd have essentially broken away from the other local authorities in North Wales ramps up the pressure on others to finally do the right thing instead of treating the most vulnerable people in society like second class citizens.”

Anglesey, Denbighshire, Wrexham and Flintshire are all still paying low fees, according to Care Forum Wales, which claims the fees are so low care homes are having to refuse placements of potential residents because they don’t cover anywhere near the true costs of care.

Care homes have to charge top up fees to remain financially viable

Due to local authorities paying low fees for state-funded residents, care homes are being forced to charge top up fees to remain financially viable, says Care Forum Wales.

Earlier this year, Care Forum Wales resigned from the North Wales Fee Setting Group, which also included representatives from the six local authorities in North Wales and the Health Board, amid claims that the region’s councils were “deprioritising care” even though they has been given more money by the Welsh Government to pay for it.

A number of South Wales councils have already started offering more realistic fees. Councillors at Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council recently voted for increases of between 16 and 22 per cent.

Ms Wimbury added: “There is now nowhere to hide for all the other county councils in North Wales.

“Gwynedd Council have demonstrated that where there’s a will there’s a way. They have blown a massive hole in the fee setting cartel that was keeping the funding for social care artificially and unreasonably low.

“It is incumbent on the likes of Anglesey, Conwy, Denbighshire, Wrexham and Flintshire to take a close look at themselves in the mirror.”