Care homes are private for profit businesses and should sort their own PPE?

[frillyfucks]

I don't understand why the government are getting quite such a grilling about the general lack of PPE in care homes, the vast majority of which are private for profit businesses.

Presumably care home operators came into this with the same knowledge base as the government did - surely as the owner of the business, the buck stops with them in terms of not preparing and ordering adequate PPE for their staff?

I know there are some LA run care homes, but my local FB page have got their pitch forks out for our village care home, run by a private for profit company who profited in the hundreds of thousands of pounds in the last financial year- surely the onus is on the company to properly equip their staff, and not the evil bastard government?

Fucking hell the lack of empathy in the OP - old people are all vulnerable regardless of their ability to pay for care 🤬

I'm a carer and I'm lucky to work for a wonderful employer. However, I don't agree that this should be a profit run business. Care should be provided by the nhs. Although, how on earth the nhs could afford to do so I have no idea!

I was talking to the manager of a domiciliary care agency. Privately owned. They carry good stocks of PPE at all times. But at the moment they can't get it. Everywhere they try they're told "sorry we can't supply you, you're not NHS". What the hell are the carers supposed to do then ? (And my sister is one of their carers)?

If you aren't ordering through NHS Supplies -which care homes and home companies can't, being private companies, prices have skyrocketed.

Plus they never previously needed to budget for things like visors, goggles, masks for every interaction - you would only use a small amount of PPE for a limited number of situations, not every single patient.

Many are homes are charities. Many are small family run businesses.
Funding has been reduced over time so they are barely sustainable; certainly not making huge profits.

Many are homes are charities

I wonder how this is affecting charities such as hospices, marie curie, marie stopes, some MH organisations etc...

They aren’t “NHS”, so how are they procuring PPE?

Some places (I know several) couldn’t buy it as stock went to the NHS.