Carterwood – sector-specialist analysts to the elderly care home and retirement living sectors – release their annual market-leading research into self-funded elderly care home fees in Great Britain.
Carterwood’s latest research includes data for 92% (9,122) of the elderly care homes that accept private referrals in Great Britain, further establishing the most comprehensive database of elderly care home self-funded fee rates available.
Key findings:
- Quoted self-funded nursing care fees increase almost 10% year-on-year across Great Britain
- Nursing care average quoted weekly fee: £1,329 p/w – annual increase of 9.6% (compared with 6.1% last year)
- Personal care average quoted weekly fee: £983 p/w – annual increase of 7.3% (compared with 6.6% last year)
- Local authority baseline fee rates increase significantly
- Average baseline fees have increased by 7.4% (to £658 p/w) for nursing care and 6.9% (to £604 p/w) for personal care (compared to rises of 2.8% and 3% respectively last year)
- Wide variation in baseline fee increases compared to last year
- Fee gap grows between newest homes and the rest of the market
- Self-funded premium of 18% for nursing care (compared to 17% last year)
- Average nursing care rate at newest London homes exceeds £2,000 p/w
- Self-funded of 28% for personal care (compared to 25% last year)
- Homes rated Outstanding retain market differential, with large fee increases across every CQC rating category
- Homes with an Outstanding CQC rating quote on average 14.4% higher fees than homes rated Good for nursing care and 18.6% higher fees for personal care
Tom Hartley, Carterwood managing director, said: “Our latest annual fee research report comes at a time when the sector is under tremendous strain, with operational costs soaring and occupancy still lagging behind pre-pandemic levels. Against this backdrop, it’s unsurprising that quoted self-funded fee rates have increased by a sizeable margin from last year. Operators have simply had to increase prices to try and cover their increased costs.
“The reforms announced in 2021 and scheduled to be introduced in October 2023 are intended to make funding of elderly care home services sustainable for the long-term, and much will depend on the outcome of the Fair Cost of Care exercise and the implementation of certain aspects of the plans. For operators, this news cannot come soon enough, as the current uncertainty is making it extremely difficult to plan ahead.”
In a market where the commercial pressure to optimise fees and sales rates has never been greater, Carterwood’s commitment to sourcing these unparalleled datasets has enabled operators and investors to benchmark current and proposed schemes against competitors and improve decision making regarding the optimisation of self-funded fees.
Carterwood’s unique datasets power the unrivalled fee recommendations included in Carterwood’s due diligence reports, and is also available at the touch of a button to subscribers of Carterwood Analytics | Elderly Care Homes, the online platform for assessing elderly care home markets.
To request a copy of the full research report, email ‘Fee research September 2022’ to info@carterwood.co.uk.
Carterwood is a multi-award-winning property adviser dedicated to social care. It provides market analysis services and software to investors, developers, and operators within the elderly care home and retirement living sectors. Carterwood combines sector-specialism with unparalleled data quality and a commitment to innovation, to help clients make better decisions.
Carterwood acts for 85% of the top 20 care home group operators and 80% of the top 10 retirement living operators in the UK, and its commercially-focused team is one of the largest dedicated to health & social care.
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