Care companies in Bristol may stop working with council over funding crisis
More than 5,000 people have their care paid for by the council
An increasing number of care companies in Bristol could soon refuse to work with the city council due to a funding crisis.
This year two companies have “handed back” care packages to Bristol City Council as many firms see their costs rising much faster than their income.
More than 5,000 people have their care paid for by the council, in a range of settings such as in their own home and in nursing homes. This year the council increased its rates by 3.5 per cent to take account of inflation, but there are concerns that care firms are struggling to stay afloat.
Companies are facing an increase in National Insurance contributions and the minimum wage, as well as clients having more complex health needs and a shortage of staff. An update on the market’s woes was given to the adult social care policy committee on Monday, January 26.
Thom Wilson, interim deputy director of adult commissioning, said: “I’ve met with providers recently and they acknowledged how the market is standing up this year and how we’re thinking about inflation for next year. They did say at some point it’s not going to be enough. Just because it’s been enough this year, for us to survive, doesn’t mean we’ve prospered.
“Equally there may well come a point where we can’t continue to deliver, if you keep giving below-inflation uplifts. I don’t feel currently that in the financial year coming we’re going to get a flood. We might get an uptick, so we may well get six, eight or ten handbacks. But I’m not expecting it to be 50 handbacks.
“However, not going out of business or not handing back care isn’t a particularly aspirational bar. This time last year I was really worried, and now I’m less worried about sustainability. We still pay more than most other places, so we’re not going to be the people they pull back from first.”
Handing back care means a company telling the council it will no longer look after a person, based on a commercial decision that they can’t afford to do so. This means the council has to find an alternative placement for that person to be cared for elsewhere, while for the person it can lead to upheaval as their carers change, and potentially moving to a new nursing home.
But Mr Wilson added one worry was a drop in quality. As care homes are faced with costs rising faster than income, this could likely lead to cuts in the quality of services they provide. A piece of work is being carried out by council staff, to ramp up the checks made on care firms.
Hundreds of care companies bid to take on cases paid for by the council. Some sectors are doing better than others, like home care, while residential care homes and nursing homes are struggling more. This is because the cost of operating, such as paying staff, is increasing more rapidly than the amount they receive from the council.
Green Councillor Tim Wye, who chairs the Friends Housing Society care home group, said: “We’re a charity, we don’t make a profit, and this year we’re looking at an increase of double the rate of inflation for a number of factors. Partly the acuity health needs of our residents has gone up. Speaking to a lot of other people, that’s not unusual.
“I spoke to someone at another provider the other day, and they’re cutting costs. They were a Real Living Wage employer, and now they’ve ditched that because they can’t afford to do it. It’s great that we didn’t have a real hit this year, but the pressure from a provider point of view does feel quite there.”
Labour Cllr Kelvin Blake added: “I think there will be a tipping point with this. So you might not be finding providers handing back contracts now, until there’ll be a point when they fall over, quite a number of them. There’s tension in the system right now, there’s industrial action over pay, because providers haven’t been given inflationary uplifts.”