‘We’re paying £90 an hour for agency staff’

The boss of the company that runs the Rhallt Care Home has revealed that they are paying up to £90 an hour for agency staff to cover  shortages.

Barchester Healthcare Ltd CEO, Dr. Pete Calveley, told Radio 4’s You and Your’s programme this lunch time that the health and social care sector is facing an impending crisis which could result in many small and medium sized care homes going bust.

“It is an impending crisis that will have a terrible impact in the next two-three months,” said Dr. Calveley, who added that care homes are generally at 88% occupancy. “We can expect occupancy to drop by 4-6% due to the increase in deaths and fewer admissions because of fears over Covid-19, and if it hits 80% occupancy then homes are not making money and can’t afford to pay staff and running costs.

"We (Barchester) are a very resilient business, with very little debt and should be OK, but small/medium providers will go out of business (unless there is more support)."

The Rhallt has been the local focus for Welshpool’s fight against the global pandemic due to several Covid-19-linked deaths being sadly recorded during April.

Dr. Calveley told the Radio 4 programme that Barchester normally experience 420 deaths each month throughout its network of care homes, but that has sky rocketed to 1,200.

He revealed that recruiting staff had become a costly issue by highlighting that agencies were charging up to £90 an hour for staff.

“It’s a massive cost to us,” he said. “But it’s a seller’s market and we have no choice but that’s the sort of charge that we are paying.”

Barchester Healthcare Ltd runs over 200 care homes and seven registered hospitals across the UK, including The Rhallt. The organisation employs over 17,000 staff in care homes which offer residential and nursing care.