Ray Hart - 4th April 2018

The cost of fostering has been in the press recently as figures have been published stating that independent foster agencies (IFAs) are increasing the cost charged to local authorities for placing children with families. According to one report the average weekly fee for council registered carers is £396, while it rises to a staggering £759 for IFAs; 92% higher. All of this embroiled against a backdrop of multi-million pounds dividends for investors and huge director salaries. Such highly inflated fees give rise to one very important question; why aren’t foster care costs subject to the same level of scrutiny as other social care costs? Read the full article here

Care costs could decimate your assets: here's how to keep the bill down By James Connington 3 APRIL 2018 

Grieving families whose loved ones die in a care home are being charged after-death fees, often totalling several thousands of pounds. The charges, which are ubiquitous across the industry, are ostensibly to cover lost income while rooms are cleared out and cleaned before another resident can move in. Read the full article here

Care costs threaten to decimate the wealth that elderly people have spent their lives accumulating, but what are the options available to keep costs down? Ray Hart advises. Read the full article here

'I paid £11,000 for six weeks of care': how 'appalling' upfront fees add up Elderly residents at two of Britain’s biggest care home operators are being forced to pay “administration charges” of up to £6,000 – just for moving in. The charges are ostensibly used to cover clinical costs ahead of a resident’s arrival, but industry insiders have described them as “appalling and unnecessary”. Barchester Healthcare and Care UK, which collectively have around 20,000 residents, both charge residents a fee equivalent to up to two weeks’ care before moving in. Last year, the average cost of nursing care surpassed £1,000 a week for the first time. One Telegraph Money reader, who wished to remain anonymous, was charged £6,000 when her mother moved into a home operated by Sunrise Senior Living. Read the full article here

Part of the CMA’s investigation focuses on the terms of contracts entered into when family members enter a care home. The watchdog is concerned that homes may be breaking the law by charging large upfront fees when it’s not clear what services they relate to. The inquiry is also looking at cases where care homes continue to collect fees after the person in care has died. In some instances homes are filling beds still being paid for by other families, it is alleged. Ray Hart of Valuing Care said the bigger issue was homes’ ability to raise charges by as much as they like. “There are cost pressure on them of course but basically these are open-ended contracts and each year they can raise the cost by as much as they like and they don’t give breakdowns explaining the increases.” Read the full article here

Middle-class families who have to pay for their own care are not merely subsidising council-funded residents but becoming the sole source of care homes’ profits. This means that previous calculations of the “self-funder tax” – the difference between fees paid by private residents and fees paid by councils – have been hugely underestimated. Ray Hart, a director from Valuing Care Ltd, said: “Everyone points to councils’ underfunding of care home places, but the reality is different. The profit motive of these businesses is working its way into the system as well.” Read the full article here

Ray Hart is interviewed by Radio 4 You and Yours.

Listen to it here

Ray Hart talks to Peter White about the need to review contracts for hidden clauses about payments to be made when rooms become vacant due to resident deaths Listen to the interview here

Continuing Healthcare (CHC) packages demand significant amounts from healthcare budgets. Care for patients with complex needs could cost thousands of pounds per week, for many years, so working out a better deal on the prices quoted could create much-needed, sustainable savings. Yet NHS re-organisation has left some areas of CHC to drift, creating an opportunity for providers to inflate their prices, particularly for specialist placements. Price squeezes from other purchasers, such as councils, means that providers are looking more and more towards the health sector as a major source of profit. Read the full article here

The cultural change of using technology to purchase CHC placements: are we ready? Ray Hart, director at Valuing Care, discusses the cultural change of using technology to improve the purchasing process for CHC placements. He discusses the benefits, and explains why training is essential to its success. In most industries, for people in the workforce whose roles have purchasing responsibilities, there are processes in place, and access to data, to help decision making. This information is largely technology-based and helps the purchaser get the best price whilst still ensuring sustainable supply. In Continuing Healthcare (CHC), this isn’t always the case. Nurses and assessors for instance, commonly purchase CHC packages over the telephone or via face-to-face meetings without any pricing information to back those transactions. They are responsible for purchasing thousands of pounds worth of care, and yet often this task is completed without challenge to the prices providers quote, and without question on the breakdown of those costs. Read the full article here

One 95 year-old nursing home resident has seen her fees rise 129pc, with barely any explanation Dr Edmondson (pictured) calculates that his aunt Eunice will have spent £600,000 on her care home fees over 13 years Read the full article here

Choosing a care home for a loved one can be an emotional experience, so the idea of having to do so twice is a worrying prospect. It is becoming more likely, though, as increasing numbers of residential homes find themselves in financial difficulty, putting them in danger of closing. Wilkins Kennedy, an accountancy firm that deals with insolvent companies, says the number of care homes that have gone bust has risen by 12pc in a year. The firm blames cuts at local authority level, which have left an increasing number of care home operators unable to service their debts. Sixty seven care home businesses failed in 2012, compared with just 28 in 2008.

The widening gap between the actual cost of providing a place in a care home and the fees charged to those who pay for themselves is clear in figures published by the Telegraph today. They show that on average those people who fund their own care – because they do not qualify for assistance from their local authority – pay on average 13pc above the “real cost” of providing their care, in England. The “real cost” figure, which is generated from in-depth research from Valuing Care into the constituent costs of providing food, accommodation and basic help, also includes a reasonable profit margin for the care home operator. The conclusion, highlighted in a separate report by charity Independent Age, also published this week, is that middle-class residents with modest property or other assets, who are thus forced to pay for their own care, are further subsidising those paid for by the public purse. Read the full article here