Cheshire East taking hard line with care homes who hike up prices

The council’s adult services directorate is forecasting a £20m overspend at the end of this financial year.

Helen Charlesworth-May, executive director of adults, health and integration, told today’s (Monday) meeting of the adults and health committee that since the pandemic there had been a massive pressure on care prices.

“Without a doubt, the most effective thing we can do is to work to prevent people coming into care,” she said.

Helen Charlesworth-May (Image: Cheshire East Council) “That is best for them, and certainly it is the most important thing from a budgetary perspective, because once people are in care, they are with us until the end of their life, and therefore you have to pay for that.”

She added: “We are taking a harder and much stricter line on price increases than we have ever done previously, and we are starting to receive notice of the ending of placements from providers.

“We are currently working to find new placements for people who have been given notice from long established placements, and that is specifically because we cannot meet the price increases that people are seeking…

“We want to work with providers, but we are being really strict in saying that we will not fund price increases that are not evidenced by transparent information that demonstrates an equivalent cost increase…

“We cannot afford to do that.”

Mrs Charlesworth-May said the hike in prices was also affecting self-funders, which had a knock-on effect on the council.

“At the beginning of the year, we did see an uptick in activity, largely associated with former self-funders coming to us to pick up their care, which, of course, is of itself linked to the unexpected increase in prices, because they've used their own money faster than they were expecting to,” she said.

Cllr Janet Clowes (Image: Cheshire East Council) Conservative group leader Janet Clowes said the impact of the chancellor’s budget on adult social care had yet to be factored in.

“That’s yet another national insurance rise, that is a national minimum wage rise, and that will feed into our private care providers,” said Cllr Clowes.

Jill Broomhall, director of adults and social care, said there were some ‘absolutely heartbreaking’ decisions being made regarding moving people from homes they had been in for a while because of price.

She said there were cases in Cheshire East where self-funders have spent up to £400,000 on their care but, when their money runs out, if they are in a facility costing £2,000 a week and their care need can be met in one costing £1,000 a week then they may well have to move.

“If we allow the person to remain at £2,000 a week, it means that we are £1,000 a week short for someone else who needs care,” said Mrs Broomhall.

There was cross-party agreement at the meeting that national government needed to come up with a solution to fund social care.