Councils treating care home residents as "second class" says leader

* Mario Kreft MBE, chair of Care Forum Wales.

Vulnerable care home residents are being treated “like second class citizens” by  councils thanks to a growing North-South divide, according to a sector leader.

And a home owner from Llangollen agrees with his assessment.

An investigation by Care Forum Wales (CFW) has revealed that the fees paid by local authorities in the North are up to £11,000 a year less per person than those on offer from their counterparts in South Wales.

They say the issue was brought into sharp focus when Torfaen Council announced big increases in their rates – 17 per cent for residential care and 25 per cent for nursing care.

It means that a 50-bed care home in Torfaen will receive £546,000 a year more for providing residential EMI care than a similar sized home in Anglesey, Wrexham and Flintshire for exactly the same levels of care.

In the cases of Denbighshire and Gwynedd, it equates to an extra £494,000 a year and £444,600 more than a home in Conwy.

Care Forum Wales chair Mario Kreft MBE says it’s adding insult to injury at a time when care homes across Wales are being forced to close because chronic underfunding has made them “unviable”.

This comes at a time when local authorities in Wales have received an additional £36.5 million to meet the extra costs of paying staff the Real Living Wage of £9.90 an hour.

Overall, there has been an overall rise of 9.4 % in local authority funding but the increases in fee levels have almost all been lower, at 6-7.5%.

It was clear that local authorities in North Wales were choosing not to pass on the extra funding to the front line of social care.

As a result, there was “growing chasm” between the fees paid by councils in the north compared to the majority of authorities in South Wales.

He said: “The North-South divide is essentially treating our beloved care home residents - who are by and large extremely frail and vulnerable - like second class citizens.

“It is neither fair nor is it kind. The people making these decisions should take a long look at themselves.

“It’s also a kick in the teeth for our magnificent staff who have been utterly heroic and put their lives on the line during the pandemic to protect the people for whom they provide care.

“I have said in the past that channelling funding through local authorities without clear conditions was like putting a fox in charge of the hen house and what’s happening now is doing nothing to disabuse me of that notion.

“Everyone is blaming the Welsh Government but they have come good with extra funding.

“Councils have been given more money to cover the additional costs of implementing the Real Living Wage but the increases we’re seeing in North Wales are generally around six or seven per cent.

“North Wales used to be the top of the league in terms of care home fees and now we are in the relegation zone.

“Fees are unsustainable at this level and something has got to give. In many cases, the extra financial burden will fall on hard-up families to make up the difference.”

According to Bethan Mascarenhas, who runs The Old Vicarage care home in Llangollen, most care homes were at breaking point.

She said: “You have look at the impact on residents and what you can do with £10,000 more a year.

“We have 17 beds so it would be a huge amount - £170,000 more a year for us to do all sorts, including better equipment, better activities and paying our team better.

“It like councils are turning care homes in North Wales into areas of deprivation.

“It’s really demoralising. We’re in an impossible situation and as a care provider I don’t have a quality of life.

“I’ve struggled over the last two years and buck stops with you. We’re all exhausted and I’ve not taken a holiday in two years because I don’t want to leave my team.

“Like any business, unless you have the finances to back it up, especially when the kitemarking and the expectations are so high, there comes a breaking point and I think most homes are quite close to that.”