Care providers fear for their own organisations’ future survival as they fight to help older and vulnerable people during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a survey by the Independent Care Group (ICG) trade body.
Just over 45% of ICG members who responded said they envisaged their business being at financial risk because of the fight against Covid-19.
Around 70% said they felt the financial support that local authority social care commissioners have offered had not been satisfactory and the ICG says more needs to be done by the government to support them too.
“The bulk of social care commissioning is done by local authorities who are struggling too,” said ICG chairman Mike Padgham (pictured).
“The government has provided extra support to local authorities but that has to help them to cope with all aspects of coronavirus, not just social care. The government has to ensure that they are better funded so that they can, in turn, support care providers better,” he added.
The ICG called on the government to provide better financial support for care providers amid concerns that the £3.2bn so far pledged for local authorities to help them support social care is not getting to the front line.
“Care providers have been suffering financial hardship for many years due to chronic under-funding. Now they are facing huge increases in costs, for instance the costs of bringing in agency staff to cover for staff who are unwell, sick pay costs and the increasing cost of protective equipment,” said Padgham.
“Due to stopping admissions, some care homes are also seeing a dramatic reduction in income and homecare providers are suffering a reduction in contracts. The government has repeatedly promised to do whatever was needed to get the country through the pandemic,” he added.
Some 66% of survey respondents meanwhile said they had had challenges over personal protective equipment (PPE) and almost 53% had had challenges with testing.
Padgham said: “This survey reveals social care providers struggling on the front line against Covid-19 and strengthens calls on the government to ensure that PPE is more widely available and that testing gets carried out.”
