2 factors are combining to accelerate the movement towards more private care home places. The first is political while the second is demographic.
The political impetus is coming from the Conservatives’ traditional belief that private organisations work far more efficiently than publicly run institutions. Therefore, someone working for a private care home provider is going to be more productive than if he or she was working in a State run home. This is clearly more beneficial for the finances of local authorities, for the country as a whole and hopefully for the residents of the homes concerned. There is also a perception that public sector workers are more prone to union activity, strikes and blind support for the Labour Party.
The bottom line is that the Coalition’s senior partner is on a mission to privatise as much as possible as quickly as possible while the Liberal Democrats appear to be sold on the idea that private sector employees are economically more productive than their public sector counterparts. Judging by the raw statistics, it would appear that, since the election in May 2010, some 400,000 workers have so far been switched from the public to the private sector.
To the outsider, it might appear from this that one bunch of care workers are being made redundant while another one is recruited. This, of course, is nowhere near what actually happens. Very often it is just the same staff with a different employer.
The second factor behind this switch towards the private sector in the care home industry is the simple fact that there are more elderly people to be looked after as they live longer and many more of these are suffering from dementia which requires more specialist care. In the case of one county, Suffolk, they have, for example, forecast that the number of older people aged 75 and over is expected to increase by 85% by 2030 and the number of older people with dementia is expected to increase by 100% in the same period.
The problem is that this rise in numbers is coinciding with subdued council revenues so there is a funding gap which needs addressing urgently. To deal with this head-on, the council is planning to close several local authority homes and have private companies replace them with much larger, state-of-the-art residences with modern amenities such as en suite bedrooms and outside garden areas.
There is no shortage of private companies looking to expand in what is obviously a growth market and they can manage a large group of care homes much more cost effectively than a local authority managing a dozen or so homes. Moreover, they have access to funding to build these new properties where the local council might struggle in present conditions.
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