NEWS RELEASE FROM THE
REGISTERED NURSING HOME ASSOCIATION
Issued 26th April 2005
OLDER VOTERS IN LONDON URGED TO CHECK ON POLITICAL PARTIES’
FUNDING FOR NURSING HOME CARE
As the general election campaign gets into full swing, older people and their families in London are being urged by the Registered Nursing Home Association (RNHA) to take account of political parties’ past records and future policies on funding the care of those who need round the clock nursing.
The RNHA has published a manifesto listing ten commitments it would like to see politicians make so that older people can exercise real choices about the type and setting of the care they receive and are given financial aid that covers their costs.
Neither the NHS payments to which all nursing home patients are entitled, nor the local authority social services payments for which around two thirds of them qualify, actually meet the real cost of the care provided, the RNHA claims.
In future, the RNHA wants the level of payments made by both the NHS and local authorities to be set by independent tribunals.
According to estimates by the RNHA, a typical 25-place nursing home is receiving up to about £750 a week less from the NHS than it costs to provide nursing care 24 hours a day seven days a week to all its patients. When shortfalls in social services funding are included in the equation, the gap between nursing home costs and the payments received from public bodies rises to around £2,150 a week.
The current system, claims the RNHA, is especially unfair to the one third of patients who have to pay out of their own pockets for most of their care and receive no help from public funds other than the NHS contribution.
Said RNHA chief executive officer Frank Ursell: “The inequity of it all is that one group of older people are having to subsidise another group. Alternatively, nursing homes run at a loss, which is undermining the financial stability of the long-term care sector and results ultimately in closures of nursing homes.”
He added: “Many people may think the financial abuse of older people is about them being swindled out of their savings by greedy relatives, dodgy tradesmen and con men. But by far the biggest financial abuse that takes place in this country is the way that care for older people is under-funded. With an election now less than two weeks away, it is time for older voters to ask some searching questions of candidates from all parties.”
Independent analysts Laing & Buisson, who have carried out a study for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, calculate that a ‘fair price for care’ in the UK outside London during 2004/05 should have been between £543 and £620 per patient per week (without taking into account the October 2004 increase in the national minimum wage).
In other words, the combined weekly total of NHS contributions and social services payments for a nursing home patient in London should have worked out somewhere between these figures.
But a survey shows that the amounts paid to nursing homes to look after patients in London has revealed a mixed picture. In many local authority areas, the figures fall well below the recommended range.
Said Mr Ursell: “Nearly three years ago our association drew attention to the significant shortfall in funding in many parts of London. We are disappointed that so little progress has been made.”
Results from the 2004 Laing & Buisson survey of local authorities indicate that, prior to last October’s national minimum wage increase, the total amounts paid by the NHS and social services in London for nursing home care were as follows:
Barking and Dagenham: £515 a week
Barnet: £564 a week
Bexley: Between £496 a week and £543 a week
Brent: Between £560 and £675 a week
Bromley: £501 a week
Camden: Between £500 and £550 a week
Croydon: £495 a week
Ealing: Between £490 and £525 a week
Enfield: £428 a week
Greenwich: £493 a week
Hackney: Between £390 and £515 a week
Haringey: £482 a week
Harrow: Between £555 and £665 a week
Havering: £492 a week
Hillingdon: £507 a week
Hounslow: £525 a week
Kingston upon Thames: Between £463 and £490 a week
Lambeth: £499 a week
Merton: Between £497 and £527 a week
Newham: Between £426 and £536 a week
Redbridge: £510 a week
Southwark: Between £456 and £544 a week
Sutton: £494 a week
Tower Hamlets: Between £425 and £1,325 a week
Waltham Forest: £546 a week
Westminster: Between £425 and £500 a week
END
Notes to editors:
1. The Registered Nursing Home Association represents some 1,300 nursing homes located throughout the United Kingdom.
2. The recommended ‘fair price for care’ from April 2004, based on calculations made by the independent analysts Laing & Buisson, was between £543 and £620 per patient per week in London. The higher figure takes account of the capital borrowing costs for a newly built nursing home and the extra running costs faced by a nursing home which meets care standards fully.
3. The figures quoted in Note 2 above do not take account of the increase in the national minimum wage which came into effect in October 2004. The correspondingly adjusted ‘fair price for care’ figures are £562 to £642 per patient per week.
4. The figures shown in the news release as the combined amounts paid by the NHS and social services per patient per week in London local authority areas appeared in the July 2004 issue of Community Care Market News, published by Laing & Buisson.
5. The NHS contribution (known technically as the Registered Nursing Care Contribution or RNCC) is fixed nationally and is therefore the same figure throughout England. It is paid in one of three bandings, according to an assessment by the NHS of the patient’s level of dependency. The figures for 2004/05 were £40, £77.50 and £125 per week. The majority of patients are assessed by the NHS as being in the low or middle payment bands.
6. For the two thirds of nursing home patients who qualify for additional financial help from their local authority social services department, decisions about the weekly rate are currently made by the local authority concerned.
7. Analysts Laing & Buisson calculated that, during the past twelve months, over the UK as a whole the average gap between the combined payments of the NHS and social services and the actual cost of nursing home care per patient worked out at £86 per week.
8. In April 2005, the House of Commons Health Committee published a report on continuing care which said: “Elderly people still find themselves subject to a bewildering funding system which few patients or carers would describe as fair or guaranteeing their security and dignity”.
For further information and comment please contact:
Frank Ursell, Chief Executive Officer, Registered Nursing Home Association
Tel: 0121-454 2511 or 07785 227000 mobile
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