NEWS RELEASE FROM
THE REGISTERED NURSING HOME ASSOCIATION
Issued 28th June, 2004
EXCLUSION OF ROLE OF LOCAL AUTHORITY PURCHASING FROM
OFT STUDY OF CARE HOMES IS A ‘PUBLIC SCANDAL’
‘A futile piece window-dressing’ is how the Registered Nursing Home Association (RNHA) described the study being launched tomorrow (Tuesday, 29th June) by the Office of Fair Trading into competition and choice among care homes.
The RNHA has strongly condemned the exercise as a waste of public money and a dereliction of the OFT’s responsibilities because of its failure to investigate the enormous influence which local authorities have on costs and prices in nursing homes and residential care homes.
Said RNHA chief executive officer Frank Ursell: “There seems to be an obsession within the OFT with the notion that care homes can exercise market power. Is that why we have lost 70,000 beds since 1997?”
He added: “We have urged the OFT to include within its forthcoming study an analysis of the way in which local authorities are abusing their monopoly position as the main purchasers of nursing home care by paying totally uneconomic fees. The OFT has refused point blank to do this. Perhaps it is the OFT itself which needs investigating.
Around two thirds of all the people coming into nursing homes are paid for by their local authority.
Said Mr Ursell: “If the fees paid to nursing homes are kept artificially low, it inhibits our ability to recruit and retain good staff and to maintain the standards expected of us. Nothing could be a more dominant factor in the long term care sector for older people than the role of local authorities in funding a majority of the care which is provided. The exclusion of this key component from the OFT’s supposed study of the market is nothing short of a public scandal.
“The OFT has refused to investigate the dominant position of local authorities, which is the biggest single factor affecting the top up payments which patients or their relatives have to pay. This dogmatic attitude is short-changing the people who use and rely on the long term care sector.”
END
For further information and comment, please contact:
Frank Ursell, Chief Executive Officer, RNHA
Tel: 0121-454 2511 or 07785 227000
|
