If care homes are charging £1k+ per week and carers are paid minimum wage, where is the money going?

Mojisola

Pennylane said:

My late Mum sold her house to pay her care home fees as after a lifetime of hard work they were able to buy their former small council house. 

Her first care home stay was just 8 months and it was the most penny pinching place ever. Everything was on the cheap although she was paying about £900 a week to stay there.  

Did you choose the care home?
Why on earth did you let her stay there that long?

tooldle

Pennylane said:

My late Mum sold her house to pay her care home fees as after a lifetime of hard work they were able to buy their former small council house. 

Her first care home stay was just 8 months and it was the most penny pinching place ever. Everything was on the cheap although she was paying about £900 a week to stay there.  They had no outside entertainment brought in because they said they couldn’t afford it.  The residents were never taken out.  The food portions were tiny and all came from the cash and carry or budget supermarket buys (I used to see their van delivering).  The orange squash they provided did not even LOOK orange, it was basically tap water with a splash of the cheapest juice you can buy.  Evening tea was the cheapest white thin bread with a lick of marg and that awful cheap slimy ham wrapped in clingfilm. You also got one of those tiny cakes you buy for kids parties which cost about £1 for 20.  One day I saw a lady being given a plate of prawn sandwiches and I said “oh lovely, that will be a nice change” and the careworker said “the others don’t get these …. She buys the prawns herself”.  🤣

They tried to charge me £150 for a door guard to prop her door open.  The beds were all cheap divan beds and far too low for most residents.  Towels were washed out and rock hard, bedding was old fashioned and paper thin.  All the furniture was rickety and so old.

Every few weeks they gave me a bill for about £20 for “toiletries” which I know for a fact they did not provide and when asked they could not itemise them.   That was a great scam and most families just paid up but I provided Mum’s items which no way cost £20.

Meantime the owner drove round in a brand new Range Rover and dressed in designer clothes and shoes. She and her  Manager used to go off on holiday to India and leave unqualified young girls in charge of 25 residents with just one member of staff on duty overnight.

I could write a book about that place and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect good food, a comfortable bed and some home comforts for £900 a week.

Who chose this place, and why? 

Exodi

Pennylane said:

Every few weeks they gave me a bill for about £20 for “toiletries” which I know for a fact they did not provide and when asked they could not itemise them.   That was a great scam and most families just paid up but I provided Mum’s items which no way cost £20.

Meantime the owner drove round in a brand new Range Rover and dressed in designer clothes and shoes. She and her  Manager used to go off on holiday to India and leave unqualified young girls in charge of 25 residents with just one member of staff on duty overnight.

I could write a book about that place and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect good food, a comfortable bed and some home comforts for £900 a week.

A breath of fresh air in a thread that has been dominated by people ignoring profiteering as an element to the dicussion, instead insisting that care homes are left with no choice but to charge £1500+ per resident per week to be able to afford their minimum wage staff.

68ComebackSpecial

Exodi said:

Pennylane said:

Every few weeks they gave me a bill for about £20 for “toiletries” which I know for a fact they did not provide and when asked they could not itemise them.   That was a great scam and most families just paid up but I provided Mum’s items which no way cost £20.

Meantime the owner drove round in a brand new Range Rover and dressed in designer clothes and shoes. She and her  Manager used to go off on holiday to India and leave unqualified young girls in charge of 25 residents with just one member of staff on duty overnight.

I could write a book about that place and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect good food, a comfortable bed and some home comforts for £900 a week.

A breath of fresh air in a thread that has been dominated by people ignoring profiteering as an element to the dicussion, instead insisting that care homes are left with no choice but to charge £1500+ per resident per week to be able to afford their minimum wage staff.

Except the person you are quoting didn't pay £1500 per week - they paid 60% of that. Perhaps if they had paid more to another care home they would have received a better standard of living - and heaven only knows why the mother wasn't moved to a better setting when the daughter was obviously very aware of the failings.

Pollycat

Exodi said:

Pennylane said:

Every few weeks they gave me a bill for about £20 for “toiletries” which I know for a fact they did not provide and when asked they could not itemise them.   That was a great scam and most families just paid up but I provided Mum’s items which no way cost £20.

Meantime the owner drove round in a brand new Range Rover and dressed in designer clothes and shoes. She and her  Manager used to go off on holiday to India and leave unqualified young girls in charge of 25 residents with just one member of staff on duty overnight.

I could write a book about that place and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect good food, a comfortable bed and some home comforts for £900 a week.

A breath of fresh air in a thread that has been dominated by people ignoring profiteering as an element to the dicussion, instead insisting that care homes are left with no choice but to charge £1500+ per resident per week to be able to afford their minimum wage staff.

But that is just one comment - which you've seized on as it reinforces your view.
We choose to provide Mum's toiletries. Just as other families in the same home as Pennylane's Mum could have done. Maybe they didn't think it was worth doing and it was just easier to pay the home.
It's not a case of saving money. We care that Mum has the toiletries that she likes (even though we're not sure she still remembers using them).

I'm not sure we would have left our Mum in a home like that.

Exodi

Malthusian said:

Why it is appropriate for the sister's needs to be moved somewhere "half the price" as the brother wants, when she can afford to live where she is now, has not been specified. (We are told that she is "not mentally capable" and has been in and out of hospital due to falls.) Nor does the BBC specify who would benefit financially from that decision.

The brother appears to want the house to be kept so "neighbours and friends could visit" but it is not in his sister's interests for her friends to stay in her house for free so they don't have to pay for a hotel / B&B, while she is transferred to somewhere with a lower standard of care to pay for their free hotel.

We don't know that staying there is neccessarily the preferred outcome for her either. Perhaps she previously would not have wanted her lifetimes wealth squandered on a 'Ritz'-level care home, denying their children and childrens children any inheritance. Conversely, as you rightfully argue, it is a conflict of interest that potential beneficiaries may be happy to see them in the cheapest accomodation possible to preserve their inheritance.

Unfortunately this is probably just one of the myriad of challenges faced if a PoA isn't assigned before losing mental capability.

Undervalued

Exodi said:

Firstly, if there is a more appropriate board for this thread, please move it.

Secondly, I don't have first-hand experience in these matters, so I appreciate I'll be making a lot of sweeping generalisations BUT-


We've all heard the news - people having to sell their houses to pay for care, people being charged sometimes £1,500 per week to stay in a care home, etc

We've also all heard of carers being paid minimum wage, residents being served microwave meals in portion sizes not fit to satiate toddlers, homes being overcrowded, the list goes on.

Where is all the money going?

For £1,500 a week, I'd expect a personal butler in a presidential suite serving sirloin steak hand-cooked by Gordon Ramsey!

Googling this question seems to indicate that it's mainly due to staff wages, which doesn't appear true - I don't know any carers with Bentleys.

So what is it I'm missing? Is it the case that care homes are just massive profit-generating machines for wealthy individuals? Am I missing something?

In the type of hotel where Gordon Ramsey might have a restaurant you would pay many times that a night for a "presidential suite" with a butler.

So your expectations are a bit out of touch,

Exodi

68ComebackSpecial said:

Except the person you are quoting didn't pay £1500 per week - they paid 60% of that.

You're contradicting yourself... you've argued my point as more valid because the profiteering described by Pennylane was achieved at a lower amount per week?........

Pollycat said:

But that is just one comment - which you've seized on as it reinforces your view.

My reason to grab that particular comment is to counter the ongoing suggestions that utility bills and insurances are the primary reasons care homes charge so much when in reality they likely account for less than 10% of the bill.

I agree with you both that she shouldn't have been left there though, that much is clear.

Undervalued said:

In the type of hotel where Gordon Ramsey might have a restaurant you would pay many times that a night for a "presidential suite" with a butler.

So your expectations are a bit out of touch,

It was pretty obviously said tongue in cheek, I'm not so sure Gordon Ramsey is available to hire for private meals - I will endeavour to contact him to check his going rates before posting in future!

68ComebackSpecial

Exodi said:

68ComebackSpecial said:

Except the person you are quoting didn't pay £1500 per week - they paid 60% of that.

You're contradicting yourself... you've argued my point as more valid because the profiteering described by Pennylane was achieved at a lower amount per week?........

Her evidence of "profiteering" amounts solely to the fact that the owner drives a Range Rover and holidays in India. What were the annual profits for the home? The dividends paid? The director's emoluments? Those would be facts as opposed to assumptions.

Malthusian

Exodi said:

A breath of fresh air in a thread that has been dominated by people ignoring profiteering as an element to the dicussion, instead insisting that care homes are left with no choice but to charge £1500+ per resident per week to be able to afford their minimum wage staff.

Every industry contains businesses that provide OK value for money, a small minority of businesses that go above and beyond, and a less small minority that rip their customers off. Care homes are no exception. Sturgeon's Law is inviolable.

Conventional economic theory says that rip-offs can't exist, but the reality is that rip-offs will (like the poor) always be with you, as there will always be some customers who haven't twigged yet or got around to moving, and some customers who have zero standards. (We can assume Pennylane's mother was in the former category, as Pennylane clearly has standards and they said "first care home", i.e. she moved.)

Exodi said:

We don't know that staying there is neccessarily the preferred outcome for her either. Perhaps she previously would not have wanted her lifetimes wealth squandered on a 'Ritz'-level care home, denying their children and childrens children any inheritance.

Perhaps indeed, but the default assumption, if someone has not left clear instructions to the contrary, is that people who have lost capacity should be housed in a way that a) takes into account only their own interests b) takes into account how they would likely have managed their own lives if they had capacity. (The latter bit means that if someone enjoyed a good standard of living when they managed their own lives, rather than scrimping and saving in order to provide for their heirs, it's unlikely to be appropriate to put them in a cheap home when they have lost capacity.)

If you think you want to be housed in a cheap care home to preserve an inheritance but don't get around to making a Power of Attorney with clear instructions that give your attorneys the legal ability to do that, that means you weren't actually that bothered about the inheritance, and the default assumption that your own needs are paramount stays on top of the pile.

No children were mentioned in the BBC article. That doesn't prove there weren't any, but you would expect children to have a view on whether their uncle chucks their mother into a twice-as-cheap care home to preserve more distant relatives' free hotel.