NEWS RELEASE FROM THE
REGISTERED NURSING HOME ASSOCIATION
Issued: 4th March 2005
OLDER PEOPLE BEING FINANCIALLY ABUSED
BY THE STATE - CLAIM
Hundreds of thousands of older people in the UK are being financially exploited by national and local government, it was claimed today.
The alert has come from the Registered Nursing Home Association (RNHA), which says that highly vulnerable older people in need of nursing home care are receiving well below the level of financial help they need from the State to meet the true cost of their care.
In many parts of the country, says the RNHA, the amount of money which eligible nursing home residents receive each week from social services and the NHS does not adequately cover the actual cost of looking after them.
The funding shortfall may mean nursing homes being forced to operate at a loss, or patients and their families having to find extra money. Alternatively, the one third of patients who receive no help from social services may unfairly find themselves paying higher fees in order to subsidise those whose costs should have been met in full by public authorities.
With the proportion of older people in the population set to increase significantly over the next thirty years, the RNHA warns that the problem is likely to get worse unless voters put maximum pressure on politicians to give a higher priority to the needs of society’s senior citizens.
Poverty in old age and a sense of abandonment is what many older people could face, says the RNHA. Increasing numbers may be forced to use up personal savings or sell off hard-earned assets to fund their care.
The government and many local authorities are reneging on their responsibilities towards older people, the RNHA claims. On the one hand, they are setting standards of care which older people are theoretically entitled to, whilst on the other hand they are restricting the flow of resources needed to ensure that those standards are met.
“Political rhetoric is cheap, but properly resourced care for older people is not,” said RNHA chief executive officer, Frank Ursell.
Mr Ursell was speaking in the run up to Red Nose Day, a major national fundraising event by Comic Relief which is this year focusing on tackling problems of elder abuse, including financial abuse.
“Many people may think that financial abuse is where older people are swindled out of their savings by greedy relatives, dodgy tradesmen and con men,” he said. “But by far the biggest financial abuse that takes place in this country is the way older people who have worked hard all their lives are forced to pay for a large part of their own care in old age. It’s a sign of the human scrap heap society we are at risk of degenerating into.”
The RNHA points to independent research published last year by the well respected Rowntree Foundation which recommended that, depending on whether people live in a relatively ‘high cost’ or ‘low cost’ part of the country for property prices and wages,
nursing homes caring for State-funded patients should have expected during 2004/05 to receive weekly payments of between £420 and £620 for each patient.
The reality, says the RNHA, has been patchy. In some areas, the combined payments made by social services and the NHS to nursing homes have fallen short of a fair price for care during the past twelve months. Independent analysts Laing & Buisson calculated that, over the country as a whole, the average shortfall amounted to £86 per week.
If payments are not increased sufficiently in the 2005/06 financial year starting next month, the RNHA believes that unsustainable financial pressures will build up on patients, families and nursing homes alike.
Commented Mr Ursell: “The Government has already let everyone down badly by indicating that this April’s adjustment in the NHS contribution to cover nursing care costs will be between zero and three per cent. That is simply not enough. If local authorities, especially those who are already paying well below par, are similarly stingy in their post-April increases, the injustices suffered by the nursing home sector in the past will be further compounded.”
The RNHA, which represents over 1,300 nursing homes throughout the UK, has already announced a major strategy to tackle the abuse of older people wherever it occurs. Addressing the financial abuse perpetrated on this vulnerable section of the population will form part of that campaign, it has pledged.
END
Notes to editors:
1. There are approximately 200,000 people cared for in some 6,000 nursing homes
across the UK.
2. About one third of people in nursing homes receive only an NHS contribution
towards the cost of their care but otherwise have to pay all the other costs out of
their own pocket. From 1st April 2005, the NHS contribution in England will
be at one of three different levels depending on care needs: £40 per week; £80 per
week or £129 per week. This figure is theoretically supposed to pay for the
nursing component of the total care provided. The RNHA argues that none of
these figures realistically covers the actual cost of the nursing component.
3. In the case of two thirds of nursing home patients, the local authorities where they
are resident make a contribution to the costs of care to bridge the gap between the
NHS contribution and the full costs. These payments are made by social services
departments. But, in thousands of cases, the aggregate of NHS and social services
contributions does not meet the full cost, leaving a gap for the patient, their family
or the nursing home to plug.
4. In 2002, the Rowntree Foundation published a report entitled Calculating a Fair
Price for Care. Based on research undertaken by Laing & Buisson, it
recommended that the average price for care (at that time) should be £459 a week.
In a subsequent revision of this information published in 2004, the report
recommended a scale ranging from £420 to £620 depending on regional cost
variations and other factors. Using the fees actually paid by local authorities
and the NHS, Laing& Buisson also calculated that, across the country, the average
shortfall below a ‘fair price for care’ was £86 per patient per week.
5. It is projected that, over the next thirty years, the number of people aged 60 to
74 years will grow by just over 40%, with those aged 75 to 84 increasing by
50% and the 85+ group by 140%. Independent experts commissioned by the
government calculate that, given these demographic trends, demand for nursing
home care will rise by around 65% by 2031.
For further information and comment please contact:
Frank Ursell, Chief Executive Officer, RNHA
Tel: 07785 227000 (mobile), 0121-454 2511 (office)
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