NEWS RELEASE FROM THE
REGISTERED NURSING HOME ASSOCIATION IN WALES
Issued 12th March 2002
NOT A PENNY MORE FOR ELDERLY CARE UNTIL APRIL 2003:
CARE SECTOR IN WALES HEADS FOR ITS BIGGEST EVER CRISIS AS NURSING AND RESIDENTIAL HOMES FEEL THE FINANCIAL SQUEEZE
Hundreds of nursing and residential care homes for older people throughout Wales are now facing financial disaster following the refusal of every local authority social services department to offer any increase in the fees they pay for publicly funded patients over the next year.
The claim that the whole independent care sector is heading for its biggest ever crisis was made today by the chairman of the Registered Nursing Association in Wales, Anthony Ramsey-Williams.
Accusing Welsh local authorities of burying their heads in the sand while nursing homes went to the wall, Mr Ramsey-Williams called for swift and decisive intervention by the Welsh Assembly to prevent the wholesale disappearance of long-term care beds and facilities.
He said: "Once the beds have gone, they have gone for good. It is extremely doubtful whether anyone else would be tempted to set up nursing homes to replace the ones that are allowed to wither away now because of the blind eye being turned by social services departments to the dire financial straits in which existing homes now find themselves."
One by one, Welsh councils have said 'no' to homes' requests for extra cash to meet spiralling costs. Newport Council, one of the tiny minority to offer what the RNHA has termed 'a derisory £10 a week increase', has since withdrawn even that token gesture. It means that there will be not a penny more allocated to nursing or residential care for older people until at least April 2003.
The RNHA is warning of potentially damaging consequences of the current impasse on the NHS. Every year, thousands of older patients are discharged from acute hospitals directly into nursing and residential care homes. But, says the association, as more and more homes are forced into closure, acute hospital wards will silt up with patients with nowhere suitable to go. Waiting lists will inevitably shoot up as patients in need of operations find their beds 'blocked' by others who are stuck in hospital.
Said Mr Ramsey-Williams: "There is an urgent need for the Minister of Health and Social Services, Jane Hutt, to intervene in the dispute. The local authorities cannot be allowed to sit there saying they don't have any money for an increase in fees for elderly people when, undoubtedly, they are awarding themselves pay increases."
He added: "We are given to understand by the politicians that this is now the era of partnership between all the providers of health care. It seems that in Wales the partnership has been short-lived. It's time for our leaders to stop treating elderly care as their lowest priority."
END
Anthony Ramsey-Williams, RNHA chairman in Wales, based at Campion Gardens Retirement Village in Swansea (Tel: 01792 235134)
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