Care Home Charges To Go Up By 33%

Care charges for elderly and mentally-ill residents at homes in the north and north-east are to go up by 33%, it emerged yesterday.

In one case the weekly fee will soar from around £370 a week to £500.

The increase will affect self-funding residents at 18 Meallmore Lodge care homes in Scotland, including ones at Alness, Daviot, near Inverness, Ellon, Fraserburgh, Inverness, Kemnay, Nairn and Peterhead.

The relatives of residents were sent letters on Wednesday announcing a “substantial increase in fee rates for all the company’s privately-funded clients”.

The letter explains that existing charges, last increased in 2006, had been “pegged artificially low” and were “no longer tenable”.

The rise has provoked outrage, with the nephew of 98-year-old Kathleen Beck-Slinn, who lives at the Grove Care Home, Kemnay, Aberdeenshire, describing the increase as an attack on the most vulnerable members of society.

Iain Slinn, of Pine Grove, Dingwall, said: “It’s not as if we are living in dire inflationary times like in the 1970s. This is a period supposedly of deflation and this is why the increase beggars belief.

“Moving house at the best of times when you are compos mentis is difficult enough. When you are 98 and enjoying the last year or two of your life, it’s not a good idea.

“That’s what makes this so awful. The residents are quite simply over a barrel.”

Mr Slinn said his aunt’s fees were £374 a week, but they would rise to £499 by September.

It means Mrs Beck-Slinn’s annual care fees will eventually go from £19,448 to £25,948.

Meallmore implemented the price rise after a recommendation by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which calculated that the weekly cost for an individual client was £677.

In the letter to relatives, Meallmore general manager Jim Fulton said: “Unfortunately, we now find ourselves in the position that keeping our private fee rates pegged artificially low is no longer tenable.

“This is because rates have to respect the true cost of care.”

A spokeswoman for Meallmore said: “As a private independent provider we have tried to keep our costs in line with the funding we receive for local authority placements. We are unable to continue subsidising this level and have to increase fees to reflect the true cost of care.

“It should be noted that most local authorities continue to operate their own residential care provision, and the prices charged to residents within their own care homes are significantly higher than the prices that these authorities seek to pay for equivalent services from independent care homes.

“Within the new fee structure, Meallmore Lodge Ltd will absorb many costs that have previously been charged, included hairdressing, newspapers and outings.”

Highland Tory MSP Mary Scanlon said: “If councils are not giving them sufficient money to cover the cost of council-referred placements that is a matter they need to negotiate with the council.

“It is wholly unjust to place that financial burden on those who are self-funding their care.”