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NEWS RELEASE FROM THE
REGISTERED NURSING HOME ASSOCIATION IN WALES

Issued: 8th October 2001

STARK WARNING OF MORE NURSING HOME CLOSURES
ACROSS WALES - SECTOR LEADERS CALL FOR URGENT
ACTION AS FINANCIAL CRISIS DEEPENS

A stark warning was issued today that older people in Wales may soon find no nursing home places available when they need them.

This follows the recent loss of five nursing homes in Swansea, nine in Neath and Port Talbot area, and five across Gwent over the past year.

Closures are taking place at an increasing rate in many other parts of the country. Two homes in Monmouthshire are due to close during October.

The director of the Registered Nursing Home Association (RNHA) in Wales, Emlyn Davies, said a crisis of unprecedented proportions was looming on the horizon, with the nursing home sector facing its most uncertain future for the past twenty years. The number of beds was falling at such rate that there were now virtually no spare beds available in many areas, with a 'knock on' effect in terms of bed blocking in local hospitals.

Predicting that between now and the end of the year a further 300 beds could be lost just in Swansea, Mr Davies called for urgent action at Westminster, in the Welsh Assembly and in social services departments throughout Wales in order to stave off a tragedy in the making. The predicted Swansea losses could be multiplied many times over in other areas of south, mid and north Wales.

Said Mr Davies: "It is perhaps ironic that at a time when, more than ever, the NHS needs to be able to discharge older patients more quickly for rehabilitation in nursing homes, the homes themselves are going out of business. If something isn't done soon - and I don't mean marginal tinkering - the whole health care system will crack under the strain."

In the view of Mr Davies and his RNHA colleagues, the consequences of inaction could include delayed hospital discharges, cancelled operations, longer trolley waits in accident and emergency departments and greater pressures on domiciliary health and social services because highly dependent and vulnerable patients who would previously have gone into nursing homes are no longer able to do so.

The root cause of the deepening crisis is money. The RNHA in Wales calculates that the true cost of providing nursing home care works out at around ?40 per week per person more than is now being paid for the majority of patients whose places are funded by social services.

Currently, the weekly fees paid to nursing homes by social services in Wales average out at around ?340 per week, or just under ?50 a day, per patient. For this amount, a home has to provide accommodation, food and 'round the clock' care to a required standard. It also has to meet overheads such as council tax, bank loan repayments, routine maintenance, repairs and improvements.

"The sums just don't add up," said Emlyn Davies. "Many homes are now running at a loss. No-one can sustain this for very long. Even in an NHS hospital, continuing increases in costs over and above income can and do lead to cuts in services in order to balance the books. Nursing homes have much smaller budgets than hospitals but still have to face the realities of making ends meet."

As things stand, Mr Davies believes no-one should be shocked in the coming months to hear about sudden nursing home closures almost anywhere in Wales. "We need to sit down at a national and local level with politicians and decision-makers to work out an affordable solution to this crisis," he said. "If we assume that society wants its vulnerable older people to be looked after properly, more money has got to be put into the system. We need a cash injection of up to ?40 a week per patient simply for homes to be able to keep their doors open."

He added: "With an ageing population and the prospect of even more people needing the level of care provided by a nursing home, the problem threatens to get worse. Old people are not going to go away. If greater financial support is not provided to the independent nursing home sector, the future costs to the State could be much, much higher. NHS hospital beds and local authority care homes are significantly more expensive to run, yet they could soon be the only options available."

END

Notes to editors:

1. The Registered Nursing Home Association represents over 1,000 nursing homes across Wales, Scotland, England and Northern Ireland.

2. About a third of nursing home patients pay their own fees. The remaining majority have their fees paid by local authority social services departments or, in the case of those who were already in nursing homes before April 1993, from their continuing social security 'income support' entitlements.

3. During the current year, nursing home fees have risen by only 3.7% - not enough to meet the shortfall in income confronting a large number of homes.

4. Figures published by Laing and Buisson show that there was a 6.4% fall in the number of independent and voluntary sector nursing homes across the UK during 2000 (from 3,746 to 3,508).

For further information please contact:

Emlyn Davies, RNHA director in Wales based at the Marina Nursing Home in Swansea (Tel: 01792 644299)

Frank Ursell, chief executive, RNHA (Tel: 0121-454 2511 or mobile 07785 227000)