LA funding warning as Four Seasons and Bupa’s profits drop

Four Seasons Health Care and Bupa’s care homes division – both of which are mainly funded by local authority placements – have reported drops in profits in their latest sets of accounts, with earnings falling way behind self-pay providers such as Barchester Healthcare. The results will give yet another warning to both local authorities and central government that continuing investment in care home services could be at severe risk in locations dominated by public pay, and that any further squeeze on margins could even threaten the maintenance of basic standards by those providers which are unable to rely on cross subsidies from private payers to deliver adequate operating margins.