Research has revealed that Carmarthenshire County Council pays £8,500 a year less per person towards providing nursing care than their counterparts in neighbouring Ceredigion.
The owner of a care home in Carmarthenshire, who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals by the county council, said the “grossly unfair inequality of funding” was having a direct impact on care home residents and their families.
It’s a view supported by social care champions Care Forum Wales that’s campaigning for the end of the postcode lottery which enables Welsh councils to pay as little as they want, whatever the actual costs of providing care.
The care home owner said: “How can it be that councils can pay different amounts depending on which care home you’re in, when the required care is the same?
“The funding difference means that we can’t make ends meet on the Carmarthenshire fee rate.
“The Ceredigion fee rate is closer to our costs but on the Carmarthenshire rate we can’t make it work.
“Therefore, we have to ask our residents and their families to contribute to the cost of the care when actually it should be their entitlement.
“The inequity is that people living in Carmarthenshire, if they need to go into a care home, need to pay towards covering the cost because the care home can’t cover the cost from the fees.
“While over in Ceredigion, our neighbouring council, residents don’t need to do that because the care homes are being paid enough and they can cover their costs.
“There is a massive inequality which is now being passed on to the citizens of Carmarthenshire.
“It is so unfair on the families and the care home residents. It is causing them financial distress.
“It hurts us to be charging them, because of a funding shortfall which has been created by the council, but we have to save the home – we won’t be able to provide the service unless our costs are covered.
“There are some care homes who are so desperate just to fill the beds that they will not charge a third party contribution.
“So what we are finding is the council will only recommend those homes which are not charging which might be miles away from where the family lives.
“So if the family can’t pay, they may have to travel a long distance to find a home.
“Ultimately, good care is about giving a good service and delivering a good outcome.
“It is so difficult for us to sit there and say to families ‘sorry, if you can’t pay this, we are going to have to serve notice’.
“It is very unfair to hang this problem onto the provider.
“There are some providers over the last few years who have not been able to cope with this and the result is that we have lost two or three homes in Carmarthenshire, they actually closed.
“So either providers become hard and save their homes, or providers exit because they can’t cope with working with the pressure of working with a shortfall in funding.
“And then what becomes of the residents?”
The care home owner said they would rather remain anonymous because local authorities have ways to penalise homes if they speak out on fee shortfalls.
They said: “Councils have lots of levers. One is not referring potential residents to your home.
“And you must remember the councils are the judges of our quality of service, we can be criticised for anything on our service by them.
“And they know compassion and providing a service to those in need is our weakness.
“That is one of the reasons why we have lost 40 care homes in the last three years.”
Chair of Care Forum Wales Mario Kreft MBE said to have some residents receive less funding was creating an inequality in care in Wales.
Mr Kreft said: “This is an issue about equality, it’s about care home residents getting more or getting less care.
“We have an inequality between Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire.
“I feel some of our local authorities are not basing their fees on methodology anybody understands, it’s a race to the bottom with most of them.”
He said the care fee levels in South West Wales and in North Wales were particularly low.
Mr Kreft said: “If you think of North Wales, they are all the same with the exception of Conwy.
“If you think of South West Wales, they are all the same with the exception of Ceredigion.
“So they are basically like a bunch of rotten boroughs in the south west and the north, with two exceptions.
“And those two exceptions are still less in the entitlement an individual would gain than in the very south east of Wales where everything seems to be run from and people seem to get more resources than anywhere else.
“The promotion of inequality in the social care sector in Wales is astounding.
“I am astonished that after 25 years of devolution that we have come to this.
“Wales was always about equality, but you would struggle to find it when it comes to the entitlement of social care services.
“I believe there is an institutional prejudice in these public bodies and the people who work in them that is anti-private sector social care
“But we need to remember that most of the care in Wales is provided by the private sector.
“We’re talking about the care of the most frail and vulnerable people in our communities so treating them like second class citizens is exceptionally cruel and heartless.
“It’s totally unacceptable that Carmarthenshire County Council is ignoring Welsh Labour Government advice and is promoting such inequality in Wales.
“Those making these decisions should consider their positions.”
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