Care home provider says it faces ‘perfect storm’ with free beds but not enough staff

A care home provider has warned it is facing a "perfect storm" with beds available but not the staff to provide care for the community.

Mike Padgham, managing director at Saint Cecilia’s Care group, said they are enduring the most acute staffing challenges it has ever faced.

Speaking to The Independent, the care home boss said the group have free beds, but not the staff to provide care for them.

His warning comes after health secretary Stephen Barclay announced the government would provide the NHS with £200m to book 2,500 care home beds this winter, as a response to worsening pressures on hospitals.

Mr Padgham, who runs the specialist care home provider in north Yorkshire, said: “The staff are not there to deliver what is wanted.

“We have always had a challenge but it’s the most acute we’ve ever known it and we are having to recruit overseas. We can’t give the NHS the capacity that is wanted because we haven’t got the staff.

“We have willingness and passion but not the ability - we’ve got the beds but we haven’t got the staff.”

He said his homes are facing a “perfect storm” and are 10 per cent short of the 250 staff needed to provide care across all of its beds.

“I’ve been involved in the sector for several decades and it is the worst I’ve seen it and it is going in the wrong direction,” Mr Padgham said. “We have to address it, people are overloaded.”

Estimates from Skills for Care found the social care sector had 165,000 vacancies last year - equivalent to 10 per cent of its workforce. Care sector leaders have repeatedly warned services are losing workers to the retail industry, where they can earn a higher wage.

When challenged on staff shortages in the Commons on Monday, Mr Barclay said a quarter of the £500m promised in the Autumn Budget would go towards staffing and pointed towards increased use of overseas staff.

However, Mr Padgham warned: “Attracting staff overseas isn’t the solution as they should be paid [equally].”

Neil Russell, chairman of PJ Care, a leading provider of specialist nursing care, said most of his organisation’s recruitment options are overseas staff but that it can take 18 months for these workers to begin work.

“We’re still competing with industries. We need to find 165,000 people who’ve not worked in care before,” he said.

Mr Barclay on Monday said an emergency recovery plan for the NHS had been drawn up, with the aim of addressing three areas: the immediate crisis, preparing for next winter, and longer term prevention of ill health to safeguard the system.

Some of the strain on the NHS comes from around 13,000 people occupying hospital beds in England – despite being medically fit to discharge – because they need further care before going home.

The government plans to book beds in residential homes to help with this, as well as boosting capacity in A&Es, and stopping inspections of emergency staff to ease the immediate NHS crisis, Mr Barclay said.

Rather than new bed funding coming from the Treasury, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said up to £200 million will be redirected from existing health budgets to fund the scheme.

The additional £50 million from DHSC’s capital budget will be used to expand hospital discharge lounges and ambulance hubs to help tackle queues of paramedics waiting to hand over patients