Care home beds crisis

More than 13,000 nursing and residential home beds have closed around the country in the last year, according to new figures today.

The figures highlight the crisis facing elderly people too frail to stay in their own homes. And the rate of closure is accelerating with 9,700 places reported lost for the year 2000.

The latest statistics, to be officially unveiled later this week, reveal that one in 50 of all care home beds disappeared in 2001.

The home closures problem is fast becoming a headache for the Government, which is under fire for doing too little to ensure that homes can remain open. The high cost of meeting tougher care regulations, together with spiralling property prices, which make it easy to sell off homes, are combining to close down accommodation.

Ministers were recently embarrassed by the case of 108-year-old Alice Knight who died after a hunger strike in protest at being moved to a new home. She was upset when her original residential home in Norwich, where she had spent seven years, was closed down because of the new regulations.

Rose Cottle, 102, led a high profile protest to Downing Street earlier this year, when she faced eviction from her care home in Hertfordshire.

New figures from respected health analysts Laing & Buisson show that a total of 63,000 long-term care beds have now shut since 1996.

In their annual survey of care homes, they show that the rate is accelerating, and may be unstoppable.

The care homes crisis is having a knock-on effect on hospitals, because thousands of elderly people are kept in wards when they cannot be discharged to a nursing or residential home.

Many owners cannot afford to meet 246 regulations laid down by the Care Standards Act. The rules set out certain measurements for rooms and doors, and often require require structural changes, as well as staff training.

Sheila Scott, chief executive of the National Care Homes Association, said: "Every bed closure represents a human tragedy. Long-term care is drastically underfunded."

The statistics were disclosed at a recent policy conference, according to the Nursing Times. The Department of Health said an extra £300million had been allocated to local authorities to provide more beds.