Care home boss hits out at spending cuts

CUTBACKS . . . Charles Jones at Anbridge Care Home

AN Oldham care home owner has hit out at how cuts are impacting.

Charles Jones, the manager of family-run Anbridge Care Home, says a reduction in Social Services and NHS fees has forced him to reduce staff and cut-back on equipment.

Oldham Social Services initially proposed a 3 per cent cut to care home owners in fees paid for residential care. But a letter now sets out a 2 per cent reduction for new residents, down from £377.50 to £370, with payments for existing residents maintained.

Mr Jones is concerned that Social Services are trying to introduce a new contract without care homes seeing them or having time to negotiate.

Because other costs of running a home are rising, Mr Jones says even a freeze would be the equivalent of a 10 per cent reduction.

He claims Oldham is 12th out of 130 lowest fee-paying councils in Britain.

In the past six months the home in Herbert Street, Watersheddings, has let two full-time cooks go and reduced housekeeping hours and will now have to halve the activities and maintenance worker’s hours with further cuts to follow if things get worse.

Duties
Mr Jones and his wife Sally have taken on more duties themselves with Mr Jones managing care and sweeping the yard and Mrs Jones now full-time administrator and cook. There has been no reduction in care hours.

Mr Jones says there has been a 12 per cent cut in Continuing Health Care fees from NHS Oldham and the ending of loan equipment — though the Primary Care Trust says the cut will be much less.

He says this has an impact on care with wheelchairs no longer loaned to care homes, pressure-relieving mattresses restricted to only a few people whose skin has to break first before they can apply for the equipment and incontinence products reduced by 25 per cent.

Mr Jones said: “The last government I think doubled the amount of money paid to the NHS. The present government is reducing those monies but not by half. So why the cuts in services and equipment that have always been there? They could afford them before.

“There is already a ‘blame culture’ going on out there between the private and public sectors. Social Services want to reward us for improving quality standards but then with the other hand reduce the means to help achieve it.”

In its letter to care home owners, the council says it’s willing to help care homes reduce costs by providing access to discounted procurement arrangements for food, gas and electricity. Director of adult services Paul Cassidy said: “The council appreciates the cost pressures faced by home-owners at what is a difficult time for the economy as a whole.

“We hope that owners in turn appreciate that the considerable reductions in grant-funding severely limits our ability to respond to these cost pressures.”

Anita Rolfe, NHS Oldham deputy director clinical leadership, said: “The NHS provides support and money for people who have long-term health needs to be looked after appropriately, whether that be in their own homes or in care homes.

“In recent months we’ve been looking at the way we work with care homes as part of many different reviews we’re doing to make sure we get the best value for money out of every penny we spend — and that quality of care is of a consistently high standard.

“We expect that care homes have consistently high standards and provide things like pressure-relieving mattresses to make their residents are as comfortable as possible

“And the NHS has always provided wheelchairs where they are needed for medical reasons.”