NEWS RELEASE FROM THE
REGISTERED NURSING HOME ASSOCIATION IN
NORTHERN IRELAND
Issued 11th April 2003
NURSING HOME FEE INCREASE ESSENTIAL
TO MAINTAIN CARE STANDARDS
Nursing homes in Northern Ireland desperately need the extra £32 a week State subsidy which health and social services boards throughout the province have agreed for publicly funded patients from 1st April 2003, taking the figure from £368 per patient per week to £400.
The Registered Nursing Home Association, which represents nursing homes throughout the UK, says the 8 per cent increase will help to prevent more homes in Northern Ireland from closing but warns that it is still well below the level recommended by the well-respected Joseph Rowntree Foundation and that much of the cash is being swallowed up by the latest rise in the national minimum wage.
RNHA chairman Rosemary Strange, owner of a nursing home in Carrickfergus, said:
“Nursing homes are a vital part of the health care infrastructure of our country. They look after many more high dependent older people than the NHS. If financial problems continue forcing them out of business at the rate they have been disappearing in the recent past, we would see the destruction of an irreplaceable public service in all of our province’s counties.”
Mrs Strange points to independent research commissioned by the Foundation into nursing homes’ running costs, which recommended that the average amount paid by the State for publicly funded patients should rise to £459 a week. This, claims Rowntree, is essential to meet the massive shortfall between what it currently costs to provide nursing home care to patients and the fees paid by public authorities for that care.
The Rowntree report acknowledged the enormous financial pressures on nursing homes, which have been struggling to stay in business after seeing their income depleted by fast-rising costs to meet higher care standards and the impact of the national minimum wage.
Over the past four years the number nursing homes in the UK has fallen by around
17 per cent, seeing the loss of nearly 1,000 homes and 40,000 places. This, claims the RNHA, underlines the seriousness of the financial vice in which many homes have found themselves.
Said Mrs Strange: “No health care provider, whether inside or outside the NHS, can continue indefinitely to run at a loss. If they did, hospitals would close and patients would have nowhere to go. Nursing homes are no different from hospitals in this respect. They need to pay staff, purchase medical supplies, feed patients and meet the cost of heating, lighting and other unavoidable expenses.”
The RNHA is striving to make politicians and the public more aware of the high level of dependency of patients cared for in a modern nursing home. Many, it says, have complex nursing needs which, twenty years ago, would have kept them in a hospital ward. Today, high quality nursing care enables them to be looked after in the less institutional setting of a nursing home.
Publicly funded patients in nursing homes cost the State only around a third of the price of care in a hospital long-stay ward. This, says Mrs Strange, shows the excellent value for money they represent. But she warns that Northern Ireland cannot continue to get nursing home care ‘on the cheap’.
“Vulnerable older people deserve better,” she said. “We need to ensure that nursing homes are adequately resourced to provide the best possible care. Our staff deserve better too. Many of them receive a comparatively low wage because the fees we receive are too low to enable us to pay any more. State support for elderly care needs to rise even more so that we can offer a realistic and reasonable wage to people who are doing a magnificent job in looking after chronically sick individuals.
END
For further information and comment, please contact:
Rosemary Strange, RNHA chairman (Tel: 02893 366194)
Frank Ursell, RNHA chief executive officer (Tel: 0121-454 2511 or mobile 07785 227000)
Notes to editors:
1. In Northern Ireland, health and social services boards now pay £400 per week towards the costs of nursing home care for patients who qualify for State funding.
2. The NHS directly funds £100 out of the £400. The NHS also contributes £100 towards the cost of nursing home care purchased privately by people who do not qualify for the full £400.
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