Jan Urquijo’s 93-year-old mother Pauline pays £939 a week to stay at Agincare’s Blenheim home in Bournemouth. She described the additional costs as ‘disgusting’
Relatives of care home residents have spoken of their outrage after being told they must pay almost £200 a month for PPE for staff.
The families, who already pay about £4,000 a month in fees, were shocked to receive an invoice for a ‘PPE surcharge’ of £6.47 a day for April.
They face the same bill every month until the coronavirus pandemic eases.
One relative accused Dorset-based private care home provider Agincare of ‘greed’, as the surcharge comes on top of a five per cent increase in fees from last month.
According to the latest figures the family-run firm, which owns 20 care homes and employs 4,000 people, turned over £36.4m in 2018, making a profit of £2.36m.
Some 300 residents paying for private care with the Dorset-based company received the invoice out of the blue.
Many said the cost for April was unjustified as care home staff only received the protective equipment on April 15.
One relative received the bill despite her elderly aunt dying almost two months ago.
Jan Urquijo’s 93-year-old mother Pauline pays £939 a week to stay at Agincare’s Blenheim home in Bournemouth.
Mrs Urquijo said: ‘The care home industry is not losing money like other businesses, they are still getting their money every month whether it’s from individuals, social services or the NHS.
Families, who already pay about £4,000 a month in fees, were shocked to receive an invoice for a ‘PPE surcharge’ of £6.47 a day for April. The care home defended the move, saying costs had increased ‘significantly’
‘At a time when we’ve seen a lot of positivity and people pulling together I feel Agincare should take the hit of what, in the grand scheme of things, is not an enormous amount of money out of their profit share.
‘They say it’s not just for PPE but also staffing costs but no company ever increases prices for that.
‘If you had staff shortages in winter because of sickness that’s something the company has to swallow from their profits.
‘The home where my mother is has not had any COVID cases or any staff sickness and I know they weren’t wearing PPE on the 14th of April, yet my mother is being charged £6.47 a day.
‘I’m just horrified, it’s just disgusting. The fee paying residents are subsidising those paid by social services yet they all get the same level of care – how unfair is that?
‘I’m appalled at their attitude, it’s just greedy.
‘I’ve written to them saying they cannot justify this and I’ve still not received a response.
‘They expect it to be paid within 14 days but I won’t be paying.’
Marlene Kennedy’s elderly aunt died at one of Agincare’s homes in March yet she has still been asked to pay the April PPE surcharge.
She said: ‘It’s just unbelievable. I could understand if it had happened a day or two after but not six weeks.
‘It’s just not on for what’s supposed to a caring profession.
‘I spoke to their finance director and just received a condolences and what was a very weak apology as far as I’m concerned.’
Barbara Collins, whose 94-year-old mother-in-law is in one of the homes, said: ‘The letter underlines the already huge problem in social care which is being ignored by the government, and has been for a long time.
‘There’s a huge unfairness between what residents are charged and I do feel paying residents are subsidising a lot of the other residents.’
The invoice was accompanied by a letter from Agincare’s financial director Owen Griffiths. The letter was headed ‘COVID-19: Additional costs’.
In it, he said the company was left with ‘no option but to invoice a temporary surcharge in order to contribute towards the additional costs being incurred by the home.’
It adds these costs were the ‘additional use and price of PPE and increased staffing costs.’
Derek Luckhurst, the owner and chairman of Agincare, defended the move.
Mr Luckhurst said: ‘We are not asking residents to pay for PPE, we are asking them to contribute towards significantly increased care costs of which PPE represents less than 30 per cent.
‘We have additional staffing costs to cope with the extra demands of the coronavirus outbreak, we also have statutory sick pay costs.
‘We are experiencing about 10 per cent of staff off sick, that amounts to about 400 staff each receiving £98.85 a week, that’s £38,000 a week.
‘We then have to staff the care home which means bringing in agency staff to cover which typically costs more than our staff.
‘This is a temporary measure and it will be reviewed on a monthly basis and any additional costs will be considered.’