More families to be asked to pay care home ‘top-up’ fees
MORE families of elderly people in costly care homes in Cheshire East will be asked to pay ‘top-up’ fees as the cash-strapped council struggles to balance its books.
And the authority’s executive director of adults, health and integration admitted she ‘couldn’t rule out’ the prospect of having to move some residents who are in care homes above the council’s budget.
Helen Charlesworth-May was speaking as the adults and health committee discussed an £11.8m overspend in adult social care for the last financial year – 2023/24 – and how they were going to balance the books this coming year under even greater pressure.
Mrs Charlesworth-May told the meeting it was ‘absolutely necessary, in the circumstances the local authority finds itself in, we are going to have to ask for more third party top-ups.’
She said: “We will have to be much, much stricter about our standard price, and we will have to be much more direct in requiring families to make a third party top-up if their accommodation of choice is more expensive than that.
“Those are all tricky things to do,
not things we have done historically, but they are absolutely things we’re going to have to do now and forever.”
Councillor Janet Clowes asked: “I’m assuming we’re also talking about those top-up arrangements that then fail and may involve moving people from where they are to somewhere that satisfies our cost element?”
Mrs Charlesworth-May replied: “Certainly, top-ups for new people entering the system.
“Moving people is much more difficult because of the risks associated with that, but we can’t rule it out.”
Jill Broomhall, director of adult social care, said the cost of care packages to the council had risen significantly.
She said: “For example, we have 44 people under the age of 65 in residential care at a cost of £6.6m per year.
“We have 109 people in supported living at a cost of £8.2m per year.
“We are seeing more individuals requiring one-to-one support and two-to-one support for sometimes 24 hours a day, packages of care of £4,000 per week.”
Coun Anna Burton asked if Cheshire East – which has a higher elderly population than average – could get support from central government, but was told it was not available.