‘SKINFLINT’ Barnsley Council has been accused of abandoning its elderly population after a body which represents care services warned more beds will have to be found to cope with demand in the town.

According to a Freedom of Information request submitted by Care England, the council awarded a 3.8 per cent uplift in fees paid for nursing and residential care homes’ beds in 2018/19.

However, the base rate paid is below the regional average paid by other councils in Yorkshire and, in the first half of 2018, no new registered beds were opened and 21 care beds were de-registered over the same period a net loss of 0.9 per cent across the town.

Care England projects that the number of care beds need to increase by 10.4 per cent at the current rate of demand.

Professor Martin Green, chief executive of Care England, said: “By failing to properly fund their care, they are abandoning old people and to give no real increase in fees when costs have risen by over four per cent is an insult.

“Our society is institutionally ageist. Older people are treated like a problem to be tolerated rather than something to be cherished.

“You just cannot run a care home and give the optimum amount of care on a pittance. No wonder care homes are closing and there is a growing crisis in the number of places for the elderly.”

The council reiterated its commitment to providing help and support to those who need it but told the Chronicle a fee increase is set to be finalised by its ruling cabinet members next month.

Coun Margaret Bruff, cabinet spokesman on safeguarding, said: “We’re fully committed to providing the help and support needed by our most vulnerable residents as soon as we can this includes our growing elderly population who require residential and nursing care placements.

“We acknowledge that the fees we provided for residential and nursing care home placements in 2018-19 falls below the regional average paid by other councils in Yorkshire.

“However, it must be equally acknowledged that our providers were awarded an interim fee increase of 6.5 per cent from April 2018 and that we remain in active discussions with the sector about agreeing fee rates going forward, with final fee increases to be agreed by cabinet in March.

“In terms of the number of registered beds available across our care providers, a recent state of the market report, describing our current market for older persons residential and nursing care, indicated that between January 2017 and December 2018, the number of elderly care home beds increased from 1,854 to 1,970 - equivalent to a 5.7 per cent increase over the two-year period.

“The report also states that the average occupancy of residential care beds and nursing care beds is 83 per cent and 87 per cent respectively.

“As part of our commitment and priority to protect our ageing population, we’ll continue to work closely with our care providers to make sure we can maintain a market that is sustainable and is able to meet the needs of our ageing population.”