Nursing Home fees breakdown

Chiggles

Is it unreasonable to ask for a breakdown of nursing home fees?
I have twice asked my mother's nursing home, owned by Canford Healthcare, to provide a breakdown of how her £1,146.00 a week is made up. Twice I have been told quite categorically that this is something they are unable to provide. Not even insofar as "nursing care provision", let alone "food" can be indicated apparently. When I challenged the local manager on this it was quite apparent that they merely have a set fee per room according to its size.
Why is this?
Surely they must have some kind of idea of what they are spending, and therefore can proportion it somehow?
Does anyone else have any experience of this? Are there any obligations on them to provide such information?
My reason for wanting to have this information is that they fail in certain areas and I'd like to be able to withhold a proportion of the payments to see if that makes them buck their ideas up....unless of course I'd then be putting mother in jeopardy!!

Any experienced comments most welcome. Thank you.

BrassicWoman

might do better reporting here?

https://www.cqc.org.uk/

Linton

Chiggles wrote: »

Is it unreasonable to ask for a breakdown of nursing home fees?
I have twice asked my mother's nursing home, owned by Canford Healthcare, to provide a breakdown of how her £1,146.00 a week is made up. Twice I have been told quite categorically that this is something they are unable to provide. Not even insofar as "nursing care provision", let alone "food" can be indicated apparently. When I challenged the local manager on this it was quite apparent that they merely have a set fee per room according to its size.
Why is this?
Surely they must have some kind of idea of what they are spending, and therefore can proportion it somehow?
Does anyone else have any experience of this? Are there any obligations on them to provide such information?
My reason for wanting to have this information is that they fail in certain areas and I'd like to be able to withhold a proportion of the payments to see if that makes them buck their ideas up....unless of course I'd then be putting mother in jeopardy!!

Any experienced comments most welcome. Thank you.

The care home failing in some areas does not absolve you of your duty to pay their fees. 2 wrongs dont make a right.

Exodi

What you intend to do with this information is probably exact reason they don't want to entertain your request.

From a business perspective, I've always found it uncomfortable when asked to 'justify' pricing (in the way you have) and they'll be aware they're fully opening themselves up to:

'£40 per day on food? I can buy all this stuff in the supermarket for £15 tops and I'm not even buying it in bulk'

'£30 per day for laundry? I could buy new clothes every day for that'

etc

gettingtheresometime

If they are failing in areas to the extent that you are thinking of withholding some of their fees, wouldn't it be better to move your mum?

Linton

Exodi wrote: »

What you intend to do with this information is probably exact reason they don't want to entertain your request.

From a business perspective, I've always found it uncomfortable when asked to 'justify' pricing (in the way you have) and they'll be aware they're fully opening themselves up to:

'£40 per day on food? I can buy all this stuff in the supermarket for £15 tops and I'm not even buying it in bulk'

'£30 per day for laundry? I could buy new clothes every day for that'

etc

Yes, plus they would not work out the charges that way anyway. They will simply add up the total costs and then get the total income to match/exceed the costs in the best way they can. For example the larger and more expensive rooms would only cost trivial amounts more to run than the small rooms. The inmates will still be eating the same food and being cared for by the same staff.

Indout96

As Linton said, the charges are to cover the costs of the home not each resident, in general the longer people stay in care the worse they get as they get older and also as the forget to do menial tasks as they no longer have to do them for themselves.
To do separate "cost plans" for each person would be impossible so you get a room charge.


Food - there should be both choice and variation, by definition this means that some people will not like all the options (but someone else it will be their favourite) how do you charge if one person has a full English every day and another prefers jam on toast for breakfast and yet another is not hungry.

elsien

If you start withholding fees you are on the road towards your mum being evicted.
There are better ways to address the areas of concern depending on what they are - complaints, CQC, Healthwatch, local authority if you have safeguarding concerns.

What are the issues? Some families get very irate about clothes going awol but I've yet to find a carehome that's completely resolved that one.
They are not going to give you a breakdown of the costs. Even if they were able to, it's commercially sensitive information.

Keep_pedalling

They have no obligation to provide such a breakdown, so yes you are being unreasonable to demand it after you have already been told you can’t have it.

I doubt if local management could even give you such a breakdown as most costs will be centrally managed.

FtbDreaming

. inmates

Haha residents or service users! inmates sounds like they’re in prison.

Primrose

It might help if yiu were able to get a copy of the accounts of the nursing home company although it,s probably privately owned so not not accessible. The reality is that despite the costs appearing exhorbitant, many nursing homes are actually closing and going out of business so perhaps not as profitqble ble as one might imagine.

If you have issues which the nursing home are unable to resolve to your satisfaction, I suggest you take your case to the Care Quality Commission or your local authority. However, first try and speak to the relatives if other occupants if you can track them down to see if they have similar concerns.