Care home profiteers cannot go unmonitored

Businessmen with a chequered track record are planning to offer investors 'buy-to-let' beds in care homes

Private investors are being enticed to purchase rooms in UK care homes on a ‘buy to let’ basis with the promise of large profits and rental income (Rex)

Britain’s ageing population and its culture of cuts and privatisation are incubating some deeply worrying trends in care for the most vulnerable in society. While there may be nothing wrong in principle with the notion of care homes for older people being run by the private sector and for a commercial return, the dangers with such an approach, especially with minimal regulation of standards of care, are obvious.

Some major care home groups have gone bust, leaving their residents homeless and in no position to find new accommodation. Last month we discovered that an American hedge fund is hovering over Four Seasons Health Care, forcing the care home provider to consider selling off its properties. At the time, the chief executive of Care England warned of the problems of putting profit first.

Now businessmen with a chequered track record (one of them posed for pictures as a spoof Wolf of Wall Street) are planning to offer investors “buy-to-let” beds in care homes, with a guaranteed profit rate of 10 per cent per year.

The idea is disturbing enough on its own, but – simply – the projected returns mean that patient care cannot but be a distant second to a fanatic pursuit of profit. The irony, of course, is that this handsome return may be what is required to entice investors into a risky sector – as the failure of a number of care home groups demonstrates. And yet such an ambitious financial target suggests that the downward pressure on costs will be unrelenting, with possibly dire consequences for the welfare of the elderly.

It is not easy to solve this financial conundrum, and it is true that some care homes – run by local authorities, charities and the private sector – have seen problems and scandals. The least that should be done is to ensure that minimum standards of care and effective enforcement are introduced. The wolves should not be allowed to prowl unsupervised.