Coronavirus: Care Forum chief warns half of Welsh care homes could shut due to 'spiralling' costs

The chair of Care Forum Wales has warned half of Welsh care homes are considering imminent closure or taking out loans.

Credit: Care Forum Wales

The Welsh social care leader Mario Kreft has warned the sector was already fragile before the coronavirus crisis began and now the pandemic has threatened to put many providers out of business.

About 650 care homes in Wales provide 20,000 beds 8,000 more than the number in hospitals.

’We are now in the midst of a perfect storm’

Mr Kreft has warned if care home close, this would lead to the NHS being “completely overwhelmed by a tsunami of need”.

“The £40 million in emergency funding promised by the Welsh Government should be a first instalment only because it is not enough to save the sector which was already chronically underfunded.

“To compound the problem, it is going to be distributed by local councils so I do not have confidence that all of it is going to reach the front line where it is desperately needed.”

Members have contacted Care Forum Wales over concerns about the shortage of PPE and the lack of testing for both staff and residents.

“Unless urgent support is forthcoming we will be seeing care home closures week on week over the summer months.

"We're seeing falling occupancy as people pass and as other homes choose not to admit people, because they're terrified that it's going to introduce the virus into those homes and obviously affect the residents they have," says Mr Kreft.

Glyn Williams, who runs a 28-bed Gwyddfor Residential Care Home in Bodedern on Anglesey has launched an online appeal to raise £33,000 towards the costs, fearing he will have to shut within the month.

Mr Williams said: “The simple truth is we are in dire straits as things stand. The welfare of our residents is vitally important they are like our extended family. But we just can’t survive as we are so underfunded.”

Mr Kreft added: "We have got people that are seriously talking to their banks, seriously talking within their organisation, whether the best thing and the safest thing for everybody is simply to close the doors."

“Care homes are fearful of accepting patients from hospitals. They feel unsafe because they haven’t got enough personal protective equipment and support. We've never, ever encountered anything quite like this in the history of the care sector in Wales, and the UK."

Local authorities should use the funds 'for the frontline'

Care England, the largest representative body for independent providers of adult social care, has today published a paper about the severe financial implications for the sector. Professor Martin Green, chief executive of Care England, said: “The pandemic presents social care providers with unbearable human costs, but also has severe financial implications.

"As an immediate priority we implore central government to instruct local authority commissioners to use the funds allocated to them for the frontline”.

“Ultimately, during this time of crisis, social care providers should be given the necessary resources to allow them to focus solely upon providing care and support to some of societies’ most vulnerable, as opposed to having to engage in a piecemeal manner with local authorities and struggle for every part of their viability”.