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£8,000 a month care home fees.

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The local authority may charge people for care and support services, and for arranging them, but some types of care and support must be free of charge.

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The local authority may charge people for care and support services, and for arranging them, but some types of care and support must be free of charge.

 

If you've not worked at all in your life and in rented accommodation and you need to move into a nursing home, the council will put you in a nursing home at minimal cost (ie they'll have your state pension). Its all means tested.

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I thought I run some numbers rather than wait for Anna, see waht you make of these.

 

One person with 24 hr nursing cover is going to require three shifts of eight hours. Assuming each nurse actually looks after six people, then six residents need three nurses plus a "half" nurse to allow for nurses on holidays, sick, leave, etc.

 

So thats 7/12th FTE for a nurse as staffing costs. A RN in adult care is well paid median salary is 38k. Add in employers NI (+4k) and pension requirements (1400) you get a figure of 45400 just for staffing costs.

 

7/12th of that spread over 52.4 weeks is £480 a week. Thats just for a nurse to be there...

 

Add on rates and rent, building depreciation, food, staff to cook it, clean, laundry, etc. that makes it £450 for the week for all that. Thats only cheap hotel rates and they have economies of scale.

 

I dont actually think that nursing home is too bad on price looking at that...

 

You could stay in a luxury resort as a couple for a lot less than 8k/month, so even if you dedicated £2k to the nursing, that's a lot of money for facilities that will be considerably less well appointed than a luxury holiday location.

 

---------- Post added 25-09-2018 at 18:25 ----------

 

So if it's easy money why don't the council open more care homes? The one my dad was in briefly was council, not that well specced and the same as a private care home.

 

The council are willing to pay about half that. Which according to the calcs is approximately the actual cost, but no profit...

 

---------- Post added 25-09-2018 at 18:25 ----------

 

Yes I was just going to post to same thing. The £8000 figure was for two people. When my nan went into a care home (with bad dementia) it was £1000 a week, which is what this equates to.

 

2nd resident doesn't actually need nursing care, certainly not dementia level support.

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I thought I run some numbers rather than wait for Anna, see waht you make of these.

 

One person with 24 hr nursing cover is going to require three shifts of eight hours. Assuming each nurse actually looks after six people, then six residents need three nurses plus a "half" nurse to allow for nurses on holidays, sick, leave, etc.

 

So thats 7/12th FTE for a nurse as staffing costs. A RN in adult care is well paid median salary is 38k. Add in employers NI (+4k) and pension requirements (1400) you get a figure of 45400 just for staffing costs.

 

7/12th of that spread over 52.4 weeks is £480 a week. Thats just for a nurse to be there...

 

Add on rates and rent, building depreciation, food, staff to cook it, clean, laundry, etc. that makes it £450 for the week for all that. Thats only cheap hotel rates and they have economies of scale.

 

I dont actually think that nursing home is too bad on price looking at that...

 

Having known people in care homes, I can assure you that there is no 1 to 1 care available that I know of. I've certainly never seen it. One care worker may have to look after the entire night shift of people. Fine if they are all asleep, but they usually are not. There will also probably be a nurse on duty but she will be dealing with paper work etc rather than hands on.

 

As for daytime, maybe 3 carers will be looking after up to 20 patients. Patients have to wait until a carer is available to help them with basic things like going to the toilet, (sometimes too late.) There will be difficulties getting a doctor to visit, unless it is a dire emergency, and not always then. He may visit regularly once a week, if you're lucky, but more often than not, he will not visit for 'chronic' conditions, and may visit as litle as once a month.

 

I wish I could be more specific in what I've actually witnessed, bbut it would probably breach rules of confidentiality. I can say however, that in my experience, what they pronise in the glossy brochure, and what they actually deliver are miles apart.

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My sister on leaving her nurse's job worked in a " care " home for two weeks before she chucked the towel in and left. Simple reason, money came before care, not good when looking after old folk who are dependent on others to look after them.

 

Angel1.

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Having known people in care homes, I can assure you that there is no 1 to 1 care available that I know of. I've certainly never seen it.

 

I can't see that anyone has made that claim.

 

Staff:user ratios will usually be determined by the Care Quality Commission - and they're normally tightly enforced for the voluntary sector like the provider in the OP.

 

Like I've said previously (and in other threads where you fail to understand costs of running services) - with many years experience of drawing up budgets for this type of service, the cost per person per week is pretty much par for the course for 24/7 nursing care.

 

The only way to reduce the charge to the end user is by subsidy either from the local authority, or like the services I used to be involved in, subsidy from the NHS (ie in both cases, subsidy by the taxpayer).

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Having known people in care homes, I can assure you that there is no 1 to 1 care available that I know of. I've certainly never seen it. One care worker may have to look after the entire night shift of people. Fine if they are all asleep, but they usually are not. There will also probably be a nurse on duty but she will be dealing with paper work etc rather than hands on.

 

As for daytime, maybe 3 carers will be looking after up to 20 patients. Patients have to wait until a carer is available to help them with basic things like going to the toilet, (sometimes too late.) There will be difficulties getting a doctor to visit, unless it is a dire emergency, and not always then. He may visit regularly once a week, if you're lucky, but more often than not, he will not visit for 'chronic' conditions, and may visit as litle as once a month.

 

I wish I could be more specific in what I've actually witnessed, bbut it would probably breach rules of confidentiality. I can say however, that in my experience, what they pronise in the glossy brochure, and what they actually deliver are miles apart.

 

No-one has said there's 1 to 1 care... obelix suggested 1 carer to 6 patients which isn't far off your 3 to 20...

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I can't see that anyone has made that claim.

 

Staff:user ratios will usually be determined by the Care Quality Commission - and they're normally tightly enforced for the voluntary sector like the provider in the OP.

 

Like I've said previously (and in other threads where you fail to understand costs of running services) - with many years experience of drawing up budgets for this type of service, the cost per person per week is pretty much par for the course for 24/7 nursing care.

 

The only way to reduce the charge to the end user is by subsidy either from the local authority, or like the services I used to be involved in, subsidy from the NHS (ie in both cases, subsidy by the taxpayer).

 

Yet a home carer is expected to do it 24/7 for a measly £60 per week, (and this is then stopped off the patients benefits.)

 

The carer may well have given up a well paid job to do so, and can kiss goodbye to their own future.

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Yet a home carer is expected to do it 24/7 for a measly £60 per week, (and this is then stopped off the patients benefits.)

 

The carer may well have given up a well paid job to do so, and can kiss goodbye to their own future.

 

That's a different subject now Anna..

Edited by truman

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I have 4 siblings, if my parents needed caring for then one of us will give up work to look after them instead of putting them in a care home and the other 4 will contribute financially to the one who gives up work plus a day here and there to make up for this unless it’s specialist care that one of them needs.

Care home fees are ridiculous so my advice is make sure you have a few kids so that you can also do something similar.

I have 4 kids myself......:)

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Having known people in care homes, I can assure you that there is no 1 to 1 care available that I know of. I've certainly never seen it. One care worker may have to look after the entire night shift of people. Fine if they are all asleep, but they usually are not. There will also probably be a nurse on duty but she will be dealing with paper work etc rather than hands on.

 

As for daytime, maybe 3 carers will be looking after up to 20 patients. Patients have to wait until a carer is available to help them with basic things like going to the toilet, (sometimes too late.) There will be difficulties getting a doctor to visit, unless it is a dire emergency, and not always then. He may visit regularly once a week, if you're lucky, but more often than not, he will not visit for 'chronic' conditions, and may visit as litle as once a month.

 

I wish I could be more specific in what I've actually witnessed, bbut it would probably breach rules of confidentiality. I can say however, that in my experience, what they pronise in the glossy brochure, and what they actually deliver are miles apart.

 

I never said anywhere there would be one to one care did I....

 

I said a ratio of one to six. Scaling up that's three to eighteen. You just confirmed your experience was three to twenty so essentially the same.

 

The figures I produced stand I think on their merits. If you want to produce a refutation please do but so far all I can see us that the amounts charged are eminently reasonable

 

---------- Post added 26-09-2018 at 07:29 ----------

 

Yet a home carer is expected to do it 24/7 for a measly £60 per week, (and this is then stopped off the patients benefits.)

 

The carer may well have given up a well paid job to do so, and can kiss goodbye to their own future.

 

Oh look there's the topic switch. Have you realises that we are not buying your doom n gloom about nursing care so let's switch to something else...

 

Start a new thread please let's not go off topic like you always do

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I have 4 siblings, if my parents needed caring for then one of us will give up work to look after them instead of putting them in a care home and the other 4 will contribute financially to the one who gives up work plus a day here and there to make up for this unless it’s specialist care that one of them needs.

Care home fees are ridiculous so my advice is make sure you have a few kids so that you can also do something similar.

I have 4 kids myself......:)

 

Fine if all the grown up children live locally!

 

My aunt and uncle were in a similar situation to the couple the thread is about. They were in their 90s, married nearly 80 years, and my aunt's health was failing. She was in a wheelchair, and also had dementia. She was admitted to a local authority care/nursing home. My uncle was deemed ok to manage in his own, he was partially sighted, very deaf, and had a hernia. He was receiving DLA at the time, but his 'Care Manager' decided he didn't need residential care.

 

They didn't pay for all their care, they lived in a council bungalow, and had little money even though they'd always worked - just never earned a lot. They had two sons, one who died in his 60s, the other in the USA. A couple of the care assistants at the home where my aunt was, would bring him food, as latterly he struggled to get out. I'm 300 miles away, trying to get some help, so in the end I contacted his councillor. The upshot was my uncle was given respite care in the care home over Christmas, and was reassessed, resulting in his getting the ok to stay beside my aunt.

 

My aunt died within months of his being admitted, but they had her last few months together, and he stayed there til he died.

Edited by Ms Macbeth

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