Welsh care home owner wants investigation of 'chronic under funding' by local council

Doug Leach, owner of Bryngwy care home in Rhayader is so disillusioned with the "outdated system" of residential care funding in Wales, he is calling for an urgent investigation.

This is after Care Forum Wales revealed care homes in Powys receive the lowest funding per person than anywhere else in the country.

Powys County Council received a “Cheapskate Award” from the Forum after coming bottom in the funding league table.

’Why isn’t the Welsh government tackling this unfair, outdated system?’

Mr Leach has spent 14 years battling for change and now wants an inquiry into the way residential homes receive widely differing fees from local authorities saying he is 'fed up with the chronic underfunding of social care'.

Mr Leach said: “We received zero increase in fees in 2019 and this year only a modest increase of two per cent. Meanwhile the national living wage has gone up by six per cent and our costs are rising.

“I have appealed to the council and even gone as far as taking them to a judicial review but so far it has all been in vain."

A weekly fee for a person in a residential care home for older people with mental frailty is £559 a week in Powys.

In Cardiff the payment is £793.48 a week for providing exactly the same level of service.

"For a 24-bed home like ours at Bryngwy that’s a quarter of a million pounds a year. It just doesn’t make sense that some homes should receive so much less than others for delivering the same vital service.

"It’s scandalous, we’re talking about people, individuals who need our support and yet we are held to the same standards as homes in Cardiff.

“I have another care home in Carmarthen, a council which is also towards the bottom of the fees table, but the amount paid to us per resident by that local authority is over £55 more than that which is paid to us by Powys.

“Our costs and provision of service are the same in both homes. How can it be that one authority pays us so much more than the other?"

Mr Leach bought Bryngwy in 2006 with a desire to provide a valued service but feels he has been battling with the council since day one: “Why isn’t the Welsh government tackling this unfair, outdated system?

“The government, whether it be Westminster or the Welsh Assembly, is always making an elaborate show of saying it is working to resolve the problem, but no funding ever comes through to us at the sharp end.

“Now on top of the fragile state that the sector was already in we have dealing with the nightmare of COVID-19. The numbers are there for everyone to see.”

'This is one almighty mess' and 'mis-managed for over two decades'

Backing the call for an inquiry, Mario Kreft, chair of Care Forum Wales said: “The market has been mis-managed by the 22 local authorities in Wales for more than two decades of devolution.

“The system is completely dysfunctional and has resulted in the sector suffering years of chronic underfunding since it was introduced.

“We were seeing care homes and nursing homes closing across Wales even before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It is hard to see how many care providers can continue in business with fees at this level and they really represent an insult not just to the staff but also to the 20,000 care home residents across Wales.”

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