Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

[UncleEbenezer]

What makes you think fees are generally high? Even before Covid-19 arrived the care sector wasn't one you would associate with profitability, let alone excess profitability.

I said there was a valid question over it. I certainly wouldn't claim to know the answer.

I've heard reports that appear to support the supposition. Stories of complex ownership structures designed to cream off money, as well as avoid tax on it. But I can't judge the balance between truth and spin in such reports.

[dealtn]

What makes you think fees are generally high? Even before Covid-19 arrived the care sector wasn't one you would associate with profitability, let alone excess profitability.

I said there was a valid question over it. I certainly wouldn't claim to know the answer.

I've heard reports that appear to support the supposition. Stories of complex ownership structures designed to cream off money, as well as avoid tax on it. But I can't judge the balance between truth and spin in such reports.

You claim there are high fees, but just not who to blame for them, "owners" or "management".

I am disputing that fees are high at all.

[Mike4]

What makes you think fees are generally high? Even before Covid-19 arrived the care sector wasn't one you would associate with profitability, let alone excess profitability.

Coincidentally my last call-out before lock-down was a tiny gas leak for a bod who owns a care home. He certainly appears more than comfortably off but as many of us here probably know, appearances do not necessarily tell the whole story.

Mind you he hasn't contacted me to settle my bill as he promised. On the other hand I haven't hassled him because given his line of business, I think he possibly has more important things on his mind.

[jackdaww]

Have a look at this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piCWFgwysu0

It's hard to imagine a loose scarf NOT making a difference.

Masks make a huge difference to the emission of droplets. You can actually demonstrate this very easily without fancy equipment. Fill a spray bottle with coloured dye (food dye works well) and spray a tiled wall. Now try the same thing with a mask, or similar, in front of the spray nozzle. I've done this and the difference is total. A loose scarf is as effective.

However these loose covering will have minimal effect on the flow and diffusion of gases.

BoE

=============================

after social distancing , and hygiene , masks / face covers are an obvious further step in reducing the odds against infection spread .

not rocket science at all .

i also suggest the holding of breath during unavoidable encounters .

[scotia]

It seems that that some care homes are forcing self-funders to pay a weekly surcharge on their fees for coronavirus

Maybe they should have charged higher fees all along, to give themselves more headroom for a contingency like this?

[soapbox] Someone's got to pay. The government stitched up the care sector (not just care homes) by requisitioning all their PPE supplies for the NHS, leaving them a market that excluded their regular suppliers. Effectively pushed them into a black market.

Whether care home owners or management are to blame for general high fees is a valid question, but not a new one arising from covid.

I'm reasonably familiar with privately funded Care Homes - from personal experience with parents and in-laws. It depends on where you live, and the degree of comfort you expect. In 2019 the average UK cost was £33852 a year, rising to over £47320 a year when nursing care was included. If you live in the South of England, or if you expect a higher-than-average standard, then you will pay significantly more than these figures.
If you rely on your local authority paying for your care, then they will not pay these rates to the Care Homes, and where a Care Home is shared between public and privately funded residents, then effectively the privately funded residents end up subsidising the public funded residents.
Much of the staffing is by immigrant workers - particularly from the Phillipines, and they often make excellent carers, working for wages which make it difficult to retain UK workers. If the UK government blocks such immigrant workers, then Care Home Costs are likely to increase substantially. And I fully understand why Covid-19 precautions will require additional staffing - and additional costs.

[scotia]

Adding on to my preceding post on Care Home Fees - from personal knowledge I expected rather larger figures than those I quoted (source LaingBuisson Care of Older People market report). On searching for more detail I read a Which report, also based on the same source - but they clarified how the Average Care Home Fee was calculated - it was the average paid by both public and private funded residents. And it adds that the private funded fees are typically over 30% more than the public funded fees, hence the average private-funded fees are considerable more than the average figures which I quoted in my preceding post. That ties up more closely with my experience.

[terminal7]

Prior to my mother's death last year, I spent several months trying to get her into a home. Her resources disqualified her from local govt support. I had PoA and she was not capable of sorting her affairs. I must have visited some 12/15 homes in NW London and out towards the M25. It became evident that 'ill' self-funders had to 'push' very hard to get into the better homes. Indeed, it soon became clear that many homes 'cherry picked' and turned down my mother because of her dementia. The average was £60/65k pa. Some insisted on 'extra' carer attendance at over £40k pa. Indeed, it was apparent that LAs were paying about 40%/50% less than self funders. I had 'discussions' with management of some of these privately run homes (several groups) over costs and it was at times reminiscent of bargaining in a souk.

T7

[tjh290633]

I'm reasonably familiar with privately funded Care Homes - from personal experience with parents and in-laws. It depends on where you live, and the degree of comfort you expect. In 2019 the average UK cost was £33852 a year, rising to over £47320 a year when nursing care was included. If you live in the South of England, or if you expect a higher-than-average standard, then you will pay significantly more than these figures.

The cost for anyone self-funding in a decent care home, without nursing, is over £1,000 a week in the Home Counties. My son's mother in law has been in one for a few years now, is very well looked after, and I would be happy to be in that care home.

TJH

[AsleepInYorkshire]

I'm reasonably familiar with privately funded Care Homes - from personal experience with parents and in-laws. It depends on where you live, and the degree of comfort you expect. In 2019 the average UK cost was £33852 a year, rising to over £47320 a year when nursing care was included. If you live in the South of England, or if you expect a higher-than-average standard, then you will pay significantly more than these figures.

The cost for anyone self-funding in a decent care home, without nursing, is over £1,000 a week in the Home Counties. My son's mother in law has been in one for a few years now, is very well looked after, and I would be happy to be in that care home.

TJH

PM the address to me and I'll do the rest

I'll get my coat

AiY"t"n'U

[XFool]

New Zealand drops Covid-19 restrictions after nation declared 'virus-free'

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... d-no-cases

Jacinda Ardern says she ‘did a little dance’ when she heard there were no cases of coronavirus left in the country

New Zealand’s government will lift all Covid-19 restrictions except stringent border controls almost immediately, prime minister Jacinda Ardern has said, as the nation’s health officials declared that there were no longer any known, active cases of the coronavirus remaining.

[XFool]

A summary of events at Sage:

Where the science went wrong

https://www.newstatesman.com/science-te ... went-wrong

Sage minutes show that scientific caution, rather than a strategy of “herd immunity”, drove the UK’s slow response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

[Leothebear]

Interesting that Dorset has such a low infection rate.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51768274

[bungeejumper]

Interesting that Dorset has such a low infection rate.

Have you seen the price of second homes in Dorset? Refuge-seeking Londoners are taking the virus out to cheaper boltholes further west. The surfing's better out there as well.

There is certainly an oddity about the south west. It has had one of the lowest infection levels in the country, in terms of corona cases per million, but its infection rate (the R word) is currently staying stubbornly high, at 1.0.

I'll hazard a wild guess that that's because so few people have the antibodies, because so few have encountered the virus. Until now....

But it's also possible that the regional data has been skewed by one serious outbreak in Weston Super Mare which shut the general hospital. Time will tell, I suppose.

BJ

[swill453]

Interesting that Dorset has such a low infection rate.

Have you seen the price of second homes in Dorset? Refuge-seeking Londoners are taking the virus out to cheaper boltholes further west. The surfing's better out there as well.

There is certainly an oddity about the south west. It has had one of the lowest infection levels in the country, in terms of corona cases per million, but its infection rate (the R word) is currently staying stubbornly high, at 1.0.

That kind of illustrates why the reproduction number in itself isn't too meaningful.

In extremis, if Dorset had an R number of 4, but only one single infected person, then it might have the potential for an exponential growth which might ultimately be very serious if not tackled. But in actuality it would be very easy to keep under control, despite the high R number.

Scott.

[Clitheroekid]

Some common sense for a change in this theatre of the absurd - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJPF5j1 ... e=youtu.be

Sumption for PM!

[servodude]

Some common sense for a change in this theatre of the absurd - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJPF5j1 ... e=youtu.be

Sumption for PM!

"the overwhelming majority of them would have died a bit later but not much later anyway"
- is 12.5 years a "bit later but not much" ( https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/ ... ronavirus/)

perhaps how he'd feel differently if personally affected: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlQ9KLrC4Us

I'd rather head to New Zealand.

- sd

[scotia]

Some common sense for a change in this theatre of the absurd - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJPF5j1 ... e=youtu.be

Sumption for PM!

I seem to live in a different world from Sumption. I saw major European countries with their health services nearly overrun until lockdowns were put in place. Its true that the facilities have expanded - but are the health staff ready to accept another major peak of stress to cope with another similar infection rate? And that is the major point that Sumption misses - does he imagine that mysteriously we will not see a further peak if lockdown is abandoned? Checks made on antibodies have suggested that about 7% of the UK population have experienced a Covid-19 infection - that leaves 93% still vulnerable. And his inference that it only severely effects persons ready to die from other causes appears to be far from the truth. If there had been no free intensive care beds, would our PM have survived?
I don't know whether or not a relaxation of lockdown will have a major deleterious effect - but I would certainly prefer if it is carried out gradually while the incidence of the disease is monitored.

[Alaric]

If there had been no free intensive care beds, would our PM have survived?

It's something of a hole in the system that it isn't known how the PM got to be infected, or even as to why he wasn't shielded from potentially infectious contacts.

[servodude]

If there had been no free intensive care beds, would our PM have survived?

It's something of a hole in the system that it isn't known how the PM got to be infected, or even as to why he wasn't shielded from potentially infectious contacts.

He's famously on video saying "I am shaking hands continuously. I was at a hospital the other night where there were actually a few coronavirus patients and I shook hands with everybody you'll be pleased to know."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3NAx3tsy-k

If they go down that hole they'd probably want to track the folk he passed it on to also
- and that doesn't really look great in their "use your common sense" strategy

- sd

[Bubblesofearth]

Some common sense for a change in this theatre of the absurd - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJPF5j1 ... e=youtu.be

Sumption for PM!

I find it hard to agree with his assertion that this is a mild disease when I have witnessed first hand the way it has affected people. My neighbour is a young, healthy woman but was held in hospital o/n with breathing difficulties after contracting the virus. The only underlying health issue was mild asthma when she was a child. Another example is a close friend of my wife, also a healthy young woman, who suffered breathing difficulties and was ill for several weeks afterwards.

Other people will no doubt have opinions formed by personal experience or knowledge of the experience of others. My own experience leads me to believe that this is, as the stats seem to be suggesting, some 5-10X worse than 'flu, both in terms of mortality and morbidity.

I do have some sympathy with the move to personal responsibility but this seems to be the way things are moving. Let's hope it works.

BoE