Councils accused of "bully-boy tactics" over care home fees

Councils have been accused of “bully-boy tactics” over the fees they are deciding to pay care home providers.

The Registered Nursing Home Association’s (RNHA’s) comments came after Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council lost a High Court battle earlier this month with providers over a proposed cut in rates for 2012/13 below the level the authority paid the previous year.

The claimants had also challenged the council’s decision to remove from its provider list all care home operators who did not agree to accept its new contractual framework by a certain date (23 April 2012).

HHJ Gosnell ordered Redcar and Cleveland to make a new decision to fix fees for 2012/13.

The council said it was disappointed by the ruling, and pointed out that it paid the highest rate for residential care of any other authority in the North East.

Redcar and Cleveland is just the latest in a series of local authorities to lose High Court cases over care home fees. Others affected include Devon and Leicestershire county councils, Newcastle City Council and Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council.

The RNHA, which represents around a thousand homes across the country, said the judgment against the council “adds to the mounting case law stacking up against local authorities that try either to cut or freeze the amount they pay towards the cost of 24-hour care for some of the country’s most vulnerable people”.

Its chief executive officer, Frank Ursell, said: “This judgment in the High Court makes it clear that councils must pay fees that are sufficient to meet the assessed care needs of older people going into nursing homes. It is also against the law for councils to stop sending new residents to homes that resist the cuts.”

Ursell added: “The fact that there have had to be so many judicial reviews of how local authorities make their funding decisions for older people suggests that many councillors and senior officers just don’t understand or accept their obligations.  

“Councils should be concentrating their time, resources and efforts on caring for older people, not on expensive law suits. When are they going to learn? The bully-boy tactics have got to stop once and for all.”