Health Care :: Investment in care home sector – Scotland

The care home sector is set to benefit from a ?30 million injection to increase care home fees, it was announced on 17/11/2006 in Scotland.

From April 2007, weekly fee levels per resident paid to homes providing nursing care could increase by 6 per cent from ?471.45 to ?501.27, and for homes without nursing care by 7 per cent from ?406.78 to ?435.30.

Speaking at the Scottish Care Annual conference in Glasgow, Deputy Health Minister Lewis Macdonald said:

“We are committed to investing in quality care for our older people.

“Together, the Scottish Executive and local councils have fully funded and implemented the recommendations of two independent reports on the costs of care, and in doing so we have delivered additional funding of over ?250 million to increase fee levels between 2001 and 2007.

“Next year, in partnership with local authorities, a further ?30 million will be delivered to increase fee levels.

“We want to make sure that this increased investment will be targeted to further improve the quality of care, and so we will be discussing with the sector the detail on how we can do that.

“We are also working in partnership with Scottish Care and with COSLA to agree how we will link fees to quality on an on-going basis from 2008.”

Echoing the Minister’s comments COSLA’s Social Work and Health Imporvement Spokesperson Councillor Eric Jackson said:

“The Executive and Scottish Care and the local authorities have worked fairly well to get us to where we are. The challenge for all of us is to build on this and improve on our partnership working for the benefit of our elderly.”

The increased fees will be linked to those homes improving their quality of services. The details of this are to be discussed further.


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