The Isle of Wight Council has met with the families of 12 people with learning disabilities who face losing their residential places at privately-operated Ryde House.
The council is providing further support and guidance for the families – having initially moved quickly to contact and reassure them last week when it became clear their relatives may be asked to leave the home.
The council said it is continuing to make every effort to resolve contractual issues with Ryde House – after the private business gave the council 14 days’ notice of its intention to give 7 days’ notice for the residents to leave.
The council is urging Ryde House to withdraw the notice and continue discussions.
A council spokesperson said:
“We have a duty to ensure that everyone we fund to live in residential care receives high quality care and a fulfilling life. We are doing our utmost to continue to ensure that the affected residents of Ryde House and their families have our fullest support during this difficult time.
“We held the meeting to further explain the background to the families and to discuss what actions we are taking to safeguard their loved ones, including what alternatives may be available.
Article continues below this advertisement “We would also like to stress that Ryde House is a much-valued and important local care home provider for people with learning disabilities. Currently, the council funds 62 people to live at Ryde House at a total weekly cost of £95,368 (an average of £1,538 per person per week, and a total annual expenditure of £4.96 million).”
Earlier this year, Ryde House wrote to the council requesting an increase in fees for 36 of the people the council funds who live at Ryde House which represented an average rise of 25.8%. This was in addition to the annual fee uplift awarded by the council to care homes for the current financial year. The letter stated that unless the council met this level of fee increase, Ryde House would be forced to serve notice on all of these people.
After receiving the letter from Ryde House, the council entered into detailed discussions with the operators’ senior managers and directors to try to come to an agreed and mutually satisfactory way forward.
The council spokesperson said:
“Ryde House is these people’s home and their security and wellbeing is of paramount importance. So we agreed, with Ryde House, to undertake extraordinary reviews of the 36 people they considered were ‘underfunded’ and to apply the results of those reviews in terms of the levels of support indicated. We have shared these reviews with Ryde House for their consideration and response.
“In some cases, the reviews suggested that the level of support could be safely reduced for some residents. In other cases, the reviews supported the current levels of support provided. And in other cases still, the reviews pointed towards the need for more support to be provided, and this has already been actioned with the extra funding provided to Ryde House. The council does not believe that the reviews are in any way inaccurate.
“These reviews were conducted explicitly in response to the letter from Ryde House about the 36 people it regarded as being ‘underfunded’ by Ryde House. They were not the person’s annual review (which also engages families and advocates) and were undertaken only for the purposes of coming to an agreement with Ryde House as a response to their letter about the level of funding. The extraordinary reviews were completed by a small team of the department’s most experienced social workers – and the council regards them as accurate and high quality.
“The council wishes to stress that it has not reduced the current level of funding for anyone at Ryde House on the basis of these extraordinary reviews. This, in our view, is still an open issue for further constructive discussion with Ryde House. Indeed, because Ryde House has disagreed with some of the conclusions of the reviews, the next stage in the process was supposed to be for us to agree to appoint external, independent experts to ‘review the reviews’, so to speak. However, this next stage has very unfortunately been superseded by the notice of eviction for 12 people we have received from Ryde House.
“It is also important to stress in overall terms, that alongside our duty and utmost commitment to the wellbeing of those we fund in Ryde House, we have a duty to all Island residents to ensure we utilise council resources responsibly and properly on their behalf.
“We sincerely hope Ryde House will continue to recognise the necessity for our discussions with them to continue – and to withdraw the period of notice it has indicated and which has resulted in such understandable alarm for the people concerned and their families.”
how much of that £1538 per week, per person goes on staff wages, administration, income taxes, national insurance and pension contributions?
Those residents don’t eat any more food, use any more water, electric or gas than any other human being. The average single, working, taxpaying individual with no children, will spend around £250 a week on all bills (one bed flat), food and some socialising. Excluding discretionary expenses, such as cars.
Whilst the residents of this house have carers and people around all the time adding to the weekly cost to live, it seems like they are looking for more money to pay themselves more, rather than for the house and its residents.
In my view, Ryde House should realise that the money comes from the taxpayer and we are not willing to write blank cheques, no matter what the reason and stop using the residents as a bargaining chip for more money.
Probably the majority of the funding goes on staff costs. Its a bit like a hospital or school-or indeed most businesses-it is staff that cost the most. “care and support funding” is all about the support people need over and above your example of costs for people without care needs. A minimum wage of 8.21 an hour, ni/pension contribution/training/insurances/sick pay/holiday pay/ extra for bank bolidays/increments for more experienced staff with higher responsibilities etc shows how expensive staffing is. Then there is a need to pay managers and administrators and cleaners and other staff who need to be paid as well.