Lack of Support for Care Home Residents by the NHS

Care England’s release ‘Lack of Support for Care Home Residents by the NHS’ from 4th June 2018 expresses its concern that ‘a number of NHS bodies are failing to pay for increased cost pressures of looking after vulnerable people in Nursing Care Homes’.

The release continues: ‘Under Government rules, the NHS is responsible for arranging and funding care for individuals who are not in hospital and have been assessed as having a primary health need via NHS Continuing Health Care (CHC). Many residents in nursing care homes are eligible for this important support, but despite significant increases in NHS funding, combined with nursing homes offering better options and value for money than hospitals, some Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) have not increased their CHC funding for 2018/19.  These decisions are adding further pressures upon an already fragile sector, with nursing homes closing at an increasing rate piling even more pressures upon an over-stretched NHS. Care homes have seen rising costs including National Minimum Wage rates and nurse pay, all of which are essential to ensure that the best calibre staff are recruited and trained’.  

Jonathan Papworth, Director and Co-Founder of Person Centred Software says: “The warning signals given months ago about the need for additional funding for social care to allow for rise in the living wage are now coming true. Whilst the living wage might seem totally laudable – it needs to be paid for somewhere, and when social care can’t be afforded then it impacts higher cost NHS care. Most people in the industry knew this would be the outcome, such a shame the government doesn’t”.

Jonathan's comments were published in Care Home Professional's news story ' Care England slams CCG fee freezes'