Care home opening rose by 6.5 per cent in the first six months of the year compared with the same period in 2020, according to a report by CSI Market Intelligence.
At the same time, care home closures were flat as, says CSI, the market proved to be resilient despite the pressures from Covid-19 and the government’s stalled proposals for sector reform.
The new care home openings provided around 4,400 new beds and, due to the average size of a care home that opened being larger than those that closed, resulted in a net increase of around 1,000.
That compares to a 153 net increase throughout the whole of 2020, which was the only annual net increase in beds since before 2015.
Nearly a third of all openings this year have been in south-east England, which accounted for a fifth of all closures.
There were no openings at all in the north-east England, which accounted for four cent of care home closures in the first six months of the year.
The operator with the most openings was Signature Senior Lifestyle, which opened nine homes, followed by Barchester Healthcare with five and West Northamptonshire Council with four openings.
In addition, West Northamptonshire Council purchased three care homes from Shaw Healthcare.
Some 86 per cent of care home openings were in the private sector, nine per cent in the not-for-profit and four per cent in the public sector.
That compares with 74 per cent of closures in the private, 21 per cent in the not-for-profit and five per cent in the public sectors.
Of those homes that closed, 52 per cent did so with a Care Quality Commission rating of Good. Some 74 per cent of all homes carry that rating, suggesting it was commercial reasons rather than care quality that led to their closure.
The analysis is included in CSI’s Say Hello Wave Goodbye report. “It was a breath of fresh air to see a marked change in the trends of recent years where closures were outnumbering openings at a two to one ratio and is especially encouraging considering what the sector has had to battle through over the last 15 months,” said founder and director Mike Short.
To read the complete six-month review, visit www.csi-marketintelligence.co.uk/shwg.html.
