21-Dec-2011 Bupa warned the haemorrhage of investment from Britain’s care homes could spark a bed-blocking crisis at UK hospitals.
The
medical insurance group, which has posted a 6 per cent rise in half
year figures, said it is concerned the ‘aged care sector’ will become
seriously underfunded and there could be more closures as local
authorities cut back on fees.
Southern Cross, the UK’s leading care home operator, collapsed in July
after it said it could no longer pay the rent on its 752 homes.
But Ray King, chief executive of Bupa,
which cares for 18,000 UK residents in over 300 homes, said he had been
approached but decided not to get involved in restructuring the Southern
Cross estate.
He slammed the government’s
Commission on care funding for ‘not addressing the fundamental need to
bring more money into the aged care sector’ to fund the cost of those
people who do not have any assets.
But
it was a strong performance from Bupa’s expatriate health insurance
business, and booming trade in Australia and Spain, that helped lift
pre-tax profit to £244.1million from £162.1million on sales of
£3.9billion.
King said:
‘In UK care services we continued to control costs carefully and
delivered further good growth in Australia and New Zealand.’
Jason Falinski, Managing Director of CareWell said "this is what the Australian system has been observing for some time, that the ineffective hospital system is spilling over in to the age care sector. It would be better for government to help the age care sector to step up and deal with these cases from the beginning and relieve the burdens on the system."
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