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NEWS RELEASE FROM THE
REGISTERED NURSING HOME ASSOCIATION

Issued 11th October 2001

WEST MIDLANDS LOCAL AUTHORITIES MAY BE GETTING LESS
THAN THEIR FAIR SHARE OF GOVERNMENT FUNDING:
NURSING HOMES POINT TO MOUNTING CRISIS IN ELDERLY CARE

Ten West Midlands local authorities may be missing out on much-needed extra Government cash to help stave off a crisis in elderly care this winter.

The warning comes from the Registered Nursing Home Association (RNHA), which says it cannot understand why councils such as Coventry, Sandwell, Solihull, Stoke on Trent, Walsall, Wolverhampton, The Wrekin, Shropshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire should have been given proportionately less money than Brighton, Windsor and Wokingham.

Fifty English authorities have been earmarked as 'priority areas', with the remaining one hundred receiving a reduced proportion of the total cake.

The fifty favoured authorities are those where the Government perceives hospital bed blocking to be at its worst but, as the RNHA points out, the picture can and does change rapidly in any area of the country. Nor, says the association, is bed blocking the sole indicator of the crisis in elderly care that is sweeping Britain from north to south.

According to the RNHA, the local authorities given a lesser priority for Government cash should be asking why they are not among the 'favoured fifty'.

Said RNHA chief executive officer Frank Ursell: "Nursing homes provide long term care to many tens of thousands more patients than the NHS. We are, and have been for many years, the main providers. But rising costs and falling income mean that dozens of homes are going out of business every week because they cannot afford to continue. No area of the country is immune to this problem. If it carries on, we shall soon reach a situation where there is a dire shortage of places for older people, even if the money is available."

Added Mr Ursell: "The fact is that you cannot provide high quality care for people for very dependent old people for an amount of money that would scarcely buy you bed and breakfast for the night in a cheap hotel. That is what nursing homes are expected to do for State-funded patients. Sadly, older people come at the bottom of the political pecking order. They get the crumbs from the table after everyone else has feasted."

The RNHA believes more homes in many parts of the country will go out of business while the fees paid for publicly supported patients remain at an average of around ?48 a day. It is campaigning for a more realistic figure to be paid.

Said Mr Ursell: "How could anyone provide 24-hour nursing care, accommodation, food, linen, lighting, heating for that kind of money? Local authorities themselves couldn't and wouldn't do it. The NHS couldn't and wouldn't do it. So the attitude seems to be - let the independent and voluntary sectors do it and then blame them if they don't do it to the required standards. Nursing home care fees need to rise by at least ?6 to ?7 a day per patient if the current crisis is not to get worse."

The RNHA is concerned that the ten West Midlands councils getting a reduced proportion of the Government's most recent cash injection will be the least able to maintain, let alone increase, the necessary level of funding for State-supported patients.

Birmingham, Dudley, Staffordshire and Warwickshire are the only local authorities in the West Midlands included in the 'favoured fifty'.

END

Notes to editors:

1. The RNHA is the UK's leading representative organisation of the nursing home
sector, with around a thousand nursing homes in membership throughout England,
Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

2. On 9th October 2001, the Government announced that it would be giving local
authorities in England an additional ?300 million over two years for community
care packages to help reduce bed blocking in NHS hospitals.

3. West Midlands councils included in the majority group receiving a smaller share
of the total sum are: Coventry, Sandwell, Solihull, Stoke on Trent, Shropshire,
The Wrekin, Walsall, Wolverhampton, Herefordshire and Worcestershire

For further information and comment, please contact:

Frank Ursell, Chief Executive Officer, RNHA
(Tel: 0121-454 2511 or 07785 227000 mobile)