Care home funding shortfall leaves self-funders filling £1.3bn gap - Alzheimer's Society responds to latest LaingBuisson figures
Healthcare market intelligence provider, LaingBuisson, has today revealed that the average fee per resident paid to care homes falls short of the real cost of service - by more than £100 a week.
The findings come from the latest update of LaingBuisson's Care Cost Benchmarks toolkit, which concludes that care home residents who pay for their own finances are having to fill a funding gap of £1.3 billion.
George McNamara, Head of Policy and Public Affairs at Alzheimer’s Society, said:
“Years of drastic cuts to social care budgets have resulted in the most vulnerable people in society being ripped off by being asked to pay more than the genuine cost of their care. We hear too often about people with dementia having to spend their entire life savings and selling treasured family homes to prop up a broken system and cover the Government’s shortfall.
“As more responsibility is forced onto the shoulders of those who are “self-funders”, fewer people will be able to afford and therefore access care. This hotchpotch approach is not only grossly unfair, but completely unsustainable.
“With a growing funding gap between the NHS and social care and an ageing population, this problem is set to worsen. The Government must act now and prioritise delivering a long term plan for social care, so that people with dementia can access the quality of care they urgently need without footing an extortionate bill.”
