Anger at private home cost crisis; SOCIAL SERVICES: Council's 'unacceptable' offer of one per cent rise.Byline: Paul Dale PRIVATE care home owners are infuriated in·fu·ri·ate tr.v. in·fu·ri·at·ed, in·fu·ri·at·ing, in·fu·ri·ates To make furious; enrage. adj. Archaic Furious. after Birmingham City Council increased the amount of money it offers them to look after old people by just 49p a day. The one per cent rise was described as "totally unacceptable" by home owners, who say they will refuse to sign new council contracts. The stance threatens a new bed blocking crisis, where frail elderly frail elderly, n.pl older persons (usually over the age of 75 years) who are afflicted with physical or mental disabilities that may interfere with the ability to independently perform activities of daily living. people have to remain in hospital because places in homes cannot be found for them. Birmingham Care Consortium secretary Les Latcham claimed such a small increase in fees would be "financial suicide" for private home owners. He pointed out that the council is behaving far more generously when it comes to funding its own homes, where budgets are rising by 6.7 per cent.. From this month, the council will pay pounds 525 a week to accommodate an elderly person in one of its own homes and pounds 350 for a bed in a private home. But with private homes providing 85 per cent of elderly care in Birmingham, the latest row is likely to make a shortage of residential care even worse. In a letter to councillors and MPs, Mr Latcham said: "Social services social services Noun, pl welfare services provided by local authorities or a state agency for people with particular social needs social services npl → servicios mpl sociales in Birmingham have a shortfall of approximately 800 beds, are closing their own homes, and appear to be hell-bent on putting the private sector out of business." He said the council had offered BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) The field in an e-mail header that names additional recipients for the message. It is similar to carbon copy (cc), but the names do not appear in the recipient's message. Not all e-mail systems support the bcc feature. See fcc. members a one per cent increase now and a further one per cent in October, but was insisting the homes sign a twoyear contract with an option of a further two years in 2011 "without mention of any further increase in fees". Last month the council announced that a cash crisis had forced it to postpone plans to build six modern care centres for elderly people, although it intends to go ahead with closing all of Birmingham's outdated local authority old people's homes. Council social services director Peter Hay, said: "If independent providers refuse to sign the contract then we don't place residents with them." OUR SAY: PAGE 18 |
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