COUNCIL funding for care home placements in Gwent is among the highest in Wales, new figures have revealed – but differences across Wales are stark, revealing what has been branded a “postcode lottery”.

Torfaen has the highest average funding per placement of Wales’ 22 local authority areas, with Newport coming in third, followed by Blaenau Gwent at fourth, while Monmouthshire is seventh. Caerphilly is tenth, but the real-terms difference is far more stark, with residents in Caerphilly receiving almost £7,000 per year less than neighbours in Torfaen.

Now, social care champions Care Forum Wales (CFW) has warned some care homes in Wales are being forced out of business due to “unrealistically” low fees.

A table, dubbed the ‘League of Shame’ by CFW, shows that Wales’s poorest payers, Flintshire, lag almost £10,000 behind Torfaen.

South Wales Argus:

The difference between local authorities is “shocking,” according to CFW chair Mario Kreft, who has called for all local authorities in Wales to set rates in a way reflecting “the true cost of care”.

“If, however, they continue to act unlawfully, it will put more unacceptable pressure on hard-pressed, hard-working families to make up the difference which is unfair at the best of times but totally intolerable during the current cost of living crisis,” he said.

“It is frankly unbelievable that in Wales we have 22 local authorities all setting their own fees and we are seeing massive differences in those fees – it means that in most parts of Wales the system is just unsustainable.

South Wales Argus:

Mario Kreft

“We rightly have national standards that we need to abide to and we need a national framework for setting fees.”

The postcode lottery was brought into sharp focus when Torfaen Council announced big increases in their rates for the current financial year – 17 per cent for residential care and 25 per cent for nursing care.

This means that a 50-bed care home in Torfaen will receive £546,000 a year more for providing residential EMI care than a similar sized home in Swansea, Wrexham and Flintshire for exactly the same levels of care.

Mary Wimbury, chief executive of Care Forum Wales, said: “We rightly have national standards that are required in terms of the quality of the care provided and the national regulations governing the social care sector.

South Wales Argus:

Mary Wimbury

“What we need now is a complete overhaul of the system and the introduction of a sensible and fair national framework for commissioning a national fee which ensures realistic and sustainable rates that cover the true cost of care and allow providers to properly reward their valued workforce.

“Our network of care homes and domiciliary care companies provide essential support for the NHS.

“Without that scaffolding, the burden on an already stretched NHS with hospitals bursting at the seams will become even more intolerable and the whole system could collapse like a house of cards.”