Can the care home increase our fees by over 20%?

running_girl375

Hi, does anyone have experience of care home fee increases? The care home my mother-in-law is in has increased our fee this year by 22%. This has been explained by increased staff costs and National Minimum Wage increases. Except that the National Minimum Wage hasn’t increased by anything close to 22%, and the number of staff hasn’t increased either, and I’m pretty sure they haven’t had a 22% pay rise. The expected increase for next year (2021/2022) is 7%. So how can this year’s increase be so much more, at 22%? I know that the Competition & Markets Authority (in 2018) made recommendations about fee increases being fair and transparent, but to me a 22% increase without specific justification doesn’t seem fair or transparent. If anyone has advice on how/if this can be challenged or if it is common across the sector to have such big fee increases I would really appreciate it. Thanks
(PS there has been no change in my mother-in-law’s level of care or her needs and she’s not changed rooms)

Aranyani

Is it for extra PPE?

running_girl375

Aranyani said:

Is it for extra PPE?

I don’t think so - they would have said if it was that

Spendless

How long has your MIL been in there. Have they not increased by much in previous years? Not in relation to care home fees, but the reason I'm wondering this, is when my kids were little there were several times I signed them up to something thinking how reasonable the charges were, only for a few weeks later it jump by a considerable amount and the justification being 'this was the first price hike they'd had for several years'. Which was all well and good if you'd had a child there during all that time enjoying the lesser charges, but not when you'd just joined and wasn't anticipating it.

Flugelhorn

they possibly  have fewer residents and more staff (+ staff being paid while off for self isolation etc??) reckon the costs will have gone up but they probably should have explained it a bit more

Rambosmum

It'll be to make up the enormous loses they have suffered this year - fewer residents, having to employ agency staff to cover COVID related staff absence (quarantine as well as illness), PPE costs etc. 

They are a private company, they can charge what they like, and increase that by whatever they like as well. It's scandalous. 

Comms69

Private business, can charge whatever they want. 

BillTrac

It gets my goat when people say that PPE will increase costs massively. Wouldn't PPE costs be tax-deductible?

Sounds to me more like the care home trying to screw people over.

thepurplepixie

Well all costs are tax deductible, you pay tax on profits not turnover.  The reality is costs have gone up, NMW increase, pension contribution increase, and yes PPE is expensive.  I imagine the cost of handgel adds up as does all the extra cleaning materials.    We all know other things are going up, like food, that applies to care homes as much as anyone else.  Lots of homes have empty rooms after the high death rates due to covid and the difficulty about new referrals during covid, if half your rooms are empty the cost per room goes up as there are many fixed costs.

Lots of homes are closing, more will close in the coming year.  I wonder what will happen then, I know when a  local home closed there were real issues finding suitable placements.

HampshireH

Do the contract allow for such an increase?