Profile: Luxury care homes see rapid growth as traditional care homes dwindle, reveals care home expert

As the number of luxury care homes continues to grow, the number of traditional style converted care homes which tend to cater for local authority residents is shrinking as care providers chase the big money, according to an expert on the care sector.

Last year saw the loss of 7,000 care home beds in the older-style care homes that tend to be in Victorian converted buildings. However at the same time, the care sector saw an extra 7,000 new beds created in luxury care homes across the UK.

Jon Chapman, director of Pinders, the UK’s leading specialist business appraisers and valuers of care homes, says: “The care homes that have closed have typically been small, independent family homes catering for local authority residents, whilst the ones have opened have been big, luxury homes, often charging £1,000 a week. So, the available capacity for residents funded by the State is dwindling and will continue to dwindle.”

Care homes which have survived have a good future

However for the ones that have managed to stay the course, it is good news, according to Mr Chapman as “whilst local authorities have sought to drive fees down during the recession to save on costs, the homes which have survived are starting to see improvements as supply reduces and demand continues to grow. Such decent homes should therefore have a good medium to long term future”.

There has also been an increase in ‘two-tier’ homes with care homes offering a range of facilities and pricing, according to how wealthy the resident is.

“Victorian properties which have been extended/improved can offer both basic rooms, at lower fees or larger, en suite rooms for those able to afford more. Only the bedrooms differ and all residents benefit from the same quality of food, activities and communal spaces,” he says.

Unfortunately potential care home owners are often just interested in profit

Mr Chapman has worked at Pinders for 25 years and he has worked in the care sector side from day one.

He speaks at seminars for people wanting to buy care homes and admits he often sees people whose primary motivation is to make money, rather than provide high quality care.

“I try to explain that if you do the latter, then the former will generally follow.”

It is looking at care homes just in terms of the profit they can make which has led to debacles such as Southern Cross. “For many, care homes have been viewed simply as a profitable short-term investment. The collapse of Southern Cross wasn’t hard to predict - we were warning for years about the unsustainable rents and lack of property investment – and it was purely driven by the City’s appetite for high returns. I fear that we will see another ‘Southern Cross’ type failure in a few years’ time,” he says.

It is partly this profit-making attitude that causes abuse and neglect in care homes. Mr Chapman believes that ultimately “the standard of a care home comes from its owner”.

Needs to be more monitoring of care home owners

He says: “I think there needs to be greater vetting and management of operators. Pretty much anyone can buy a care home if they have the money and they are the ones who decide how that home is run.”

Another thing that would help would be to raise the compliancy standards or re-introduce a quality rating which incentivises providers to strive for improvement, according to Mr Chapman.

He says: “In terms of regulation of the sector, I have sympathy with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) as they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. The problem is that they have been asked to judge compliance rather than quality, so care homes that I feel should be shut down can still be technically compliant. Unfortunately, the local authorities have become more of a regulator than the CQC in recent years, with the threat of blocked referrals being more acutely felt than a cross in a CQC box.”

Many believe increasing the amount of training for care workers would be a solution but Mr Chapman says: “Better training is what’s needed with greater focus on practical care and less on theory. Whilst training is important, it alone doesn’t make you a good care worker - I expect all the care staff that have been exposed on Panorama have had training – you need to have an inherently caring attitude to become a carer.”

He is also concerned that you may end up preventing people who would be excellent care workers from doing the job. “You now have to have a degree to become a nurse, but that doesn’t mean you are going to be a good nurse. If you put up too many barriers, you may end up excluding people who would be very good at the job.

“It is such a tough job but increasingly people are becoming care workers because it is a job rather than a vocation. Society has placed a low financial value on care workers so there is little attraction for the better qualified to apply.

Yet something needs to be done as “we are having to employ more care workers and nurses from abroad as we don’t have enough here to meet the demand, and this inevitably presents problems with language and communication,” he says.

Unfortunately it doesn’t help that “the media tends to paint a distorted picture of care homes, focusing on the rare incidents of abuse and suggesting that all homes are equally poor. The vast majority of care homes are good places with dedicated staff but that rarely gets shown”.

Healthcare Design Awards

Every year, Pinders host The Healthcare Design Awards, which acknowledge the contribution made by home owners, designers and architects to the well-being and quality of life for those in their care.

Over this time, they have noticed a growth in good interior design for people with dementia and staff are being trained in how those designs work and impact on people.

A decade ago, Pinders introduced green energy as a category in the awards thinking it would be the next big thing. However to their surprise, there hasn’t been the mass push towards green energy that they anticipated.

“We are see very gradually an increasing number of care homes embracing green energy but it has been very slow. For care homes the bottom line is how much is it going to cost?”

Gap widening between rich and poor in care home sector The awards have also witnessed the growth of the luxury care homes and Pinders have seen people’s expectations of what a care home should look like change dramatically.

“Fifteen years ago, we were impressed if there were en suite rooms, now some care homes have cinemas, bistros, gymnasia, etc. The gap is definitely widening between the haves and the have-nots in terms of care homes.”

Funding of the care sector is always a contentious issue. Mr Chapman believes there is plenty of money in care but it is not distributed fairly or proportionally. He says: “For example, the State spends significantly more for the care of younger adults with mental health, behavioural or learning disabilities than for an elderly person with dementia, even though their care needs may be similar or even less. The sooner the Government removes the illogical barriers between health and social care funding the sooner we will fund care in a more cost-effective and fairer way.”

Interesting facts

What was your first job: Instructor for a canal holiday company

What is your favourite book: To Serve Them All My Days by RF Delderfield – the only book I’ve read three times

What is your favourite film: Emanuelle 2 – the characterisation was so much better than in the first film!

What is the best present you have ever received: My sister-in-law bought me a helicopter flying lesson for my 40th

What was your last holiday: Skiing is my passion but my last foreign holiday with Mrs C was in Scotland