North Wales MS Mark Isherwood has today called for urgent Welsh Government intervention to ensure both a sustainable settlement for care home providers and a national approach to fee setting to provide a baseline figure.
Mr Isherwood raised the matter in today’s meeting of the Welsh Parliament after meeting Care Forum Wales last week to discuss their concerns over Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board’s care home fee uplift of just 3.71 per cent in North Wales for 2024-25.
Speaking in the Business Statement, Mr Isherwood called for an urgent Statement on the matter.
He said:
“I ask for an urgent Statement from the Health and Social Care Secretary on care home fees. On 6th June, Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board wrote to care providers in North Wales, setting out a care home fee uplift of just 3.71 per cent for 2024-25, failing to match local authority increases and lower even than Flintshire's average fee increase of 5.33 per cent, which was the lowest in Wales until then.
“It means that providers would receive less for providing Continuing Health Care than Funded Nursing Care, despite Continuing Health Care cases being higher in complexity and having additional nursing requirements.
“Last Friday, Gareth Davies MS and I met Care Forum Wales to discuss their concerns about this. We heard that North Wales now has the lowest Care Home Fees in Wales, putting pressure on providers to stop accepting new Continuing Health Care patients and to give notice to their current Continuing Health Care-funded residents, a distressing outcome that nobody wants to see, at the very time when need has never been greater and Health Boards so desperately need these care home beds. Urgent intervention is therefore required, to ensure both a sustainable settlement, and a national approach to fee setting to provide a baseline figure. I call for an urgent Statement accordingly.
Responding for the Welsh Government, the Trefnydd said:
“Thank you very much, Mark Isherwood, for that very important question, and I know that's something that the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care is actively addressing, but it's also not a question just for the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, obviously it's a question for the Minister for Social Care and it is a question for the Cabinet Secretary for Housing, Local Government and Planning. All of these cross-Government responsibilities, Cabinet responsibilities, are key to addressing this issue.”