Care Markets

High Court judges have ruled partially in favour of a group of care home providers in Devon over the county council’s elderly care fee levels for the 2012/13 financial year.

The payments which local authorities are willing to make for care home beds for the elderly have slipped even further away from the levels deemed fair’ to cover the costs involved and to give care home operators a reasonable rate of return on their investment.

The National Care Forum (NCF) is calling on the government to re-introduce a care ratings system after discrepancies were found between Care Quality Commission...

Southampton city council has been ordered to reimburse the family of an elderly woman who were wrongly charged top-up’ fees for residential care. The Local Government Ombudsman ruled that, in line with government guidance, because no accommodation was available at the council’s usual rate’, the local authority should have paid to accommodate the woman elsewhere and should not have sought additional fees beyond the assessed contribution.

The Abbeyfield Society reported a turnover of £38.6m for the year ended 30 March 2012, an increase of 6% on the previous year’s £36.4m. The...

Building work on the first of five care homes in Glasgow began last month following an £80.4m investment into services for older people by...

Care home operator Bondcare has denied claims it is experiencing financial difficulties, stating all its four operating companies are solvent. Reports in The Independent and The Observer earlier this month claimed the business was in trouble after it emerged one of its companies BC2 had been put into receivership with Ernst & Young in July. But the receivers told CCMn that the move to dissolve the holding company of Bondcare Nilerace was made to enable the directors to transfer this company, which manages 39 former Southern Cross care homes, to Healthcare Management Solutions (HCMS), which operates a number of care homes in the Midlands and Wales. A Bondcare spokeswoman said: Bondcare operates 35 care homes under four operating companies. 39 former Southern Cross nursing homes were operated by Bondcare under a fixed contract which expired at the end of September. This contract has now been passed to another provider. Bondcare’s remaining homes are operated by financially sound, private companies and our resources are focussed on providing high quality care for our residents.’

Suffolk county council upheld the decision to transfer 20 of its homes to Care UK following the move being called-in by Labour members of...

Optimum Care Limited reported revenues of £24.1m for the year ended 31 March 2012, an increase of 17% on the previous year’s £20.4m. Operating...

One in five people paralysed by a spinal cord injury is being placed in care homes for the elderly due to a lack of...