NEWS RELEASE FROM THE
REGISTERED NURSING HOME ASSOCIATION
25th July 2002
“SHOW US THAT YOU ARE REALLY SERIOUS ABOUT SAVING THE NURSING
HOME SECTOR”: RNHA RESPONSE TO ALAN MILBURN’S STATEMENT
ON SERVICES FOR OLDER PEOPLE
Britain’s nursing home leaders today welcomed Health Secretary Alan Milburn’s
recognition that the decline in beds had gone too far and needed to be reversed.
The Registered Nursing Home Association (RNHA) said Mr Milburn’s latest statement to Parliament on services for older people showed signs that the government had at last heeded warnings from the nursing home sector.
Commented chief executive officer Frank Ursell: “I think the Secretary of State now realises the seriousness of the situation. He knows that unless there is a healthy care home sector to work in partnership with the NHS, many of the government’s aspirations will come to nothing.”
But the RNHA is now looking for prompt action and early evidence that the government will not allow more homes to sink into the financial mire.
Said Mr Ursell: “It’s one thing for Mr Milburn to say that more nursing home places are needed. But it’s quite another to ensure that local authorities will raise the fees they pay for State-assisted patients to a level which is economic. Unless the government can succeed in making them do that, any new beds which may be opened will be more than offset by others lost through further bankruptcies and closures.”
He added: “There are many local authorities across the country which do not even spend the amount on social care which the government would expect them to do in order meet the needs of their populations. We need to see a greater sense of urgency from Ministers to get national policies implemented at local level.”
The RNHA is pressing for up to a 30 per cent increase in the current levels of fees so that nursing homes can cover their costs. Increases over the next year of five or six per cent will be nowhere near enough to stave off further financial problems in the care home sector, it claims. A recent independent report from the Rowntree Foundation highlighted a need for most local authorities to pay between an extra £80 and £100 per week per patient.
The RNHA has also welcomed Mr Milburn’s proposal to remove the compulsion from new care standards governing room sizes, door widths and other physical characteristics of nursing homes.
Said Mr Ursell: “Whilst we support the raising of standards in nursing homes, we said at the time when these new standards were first mooted that it would be very difficult or even impossible for some homes to meet them. The standards had to be seen to be aspirational. I think the government has now grasped this point, although it is rather too late for those homes which felt they could not gone on and felt obliged to close their doors. The episode has been bad for patients and for staff. Let us hope that the voice of realism will prevent a recurrence for others in the future.”
END
Frank Ursell, Chief Executive Officer, Registered Nursing Home Association
Tel: 0121-454 2511 or 07785 227000 mobile
Note to editors:
1. The above release is in response to a statement issued by Health Secretary Alan
Milburn on services for older people (Department of Health News Release ref.
2002/0324)
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