Private care homes likely to go out of business?

[Rebelwithallthecause]

Based on latest news (and as many suspected anyway) it seems that their customer base is reducing at an astronomical rate

Is it likely this will put private care homes out of business ?

Unless people are suddenly willing, able and trained to take care of their elderly and often incontinent and immobile relatives, then no. Its highly unlikely care homes will go out of business. Many, if not all, have massive waiting lists. We have a turn around of less than two weeks on our available rooms.

No.

No, there's a shortage of care home places which is why there was so much bed-blocking in hospitals. Patients will get discharged sooner and move into the newly vacated care home places.

The bigger risk to care homes is that once this is over, they'll be subject to scrutiny/review as to how many people they have, how crowded their communal areas are, etc. I think there'll be new rules as to how many people are allowed into lounges/dining rooms at the same time, and/or reducing the numbers of people in each home - all to avoid people having to live so close together. If care homes have to reduce their occupants by 10/20% to allow for more distancing, that will be what causes them to become non viable.

The "pack em in" approach will be what has to end. Some care homes will be large enough to have plenty of communal space and be able to provide "distancing" between occupants - others won't and it's the latter who will go to the wall.

Same with GP surgeries, hospitals, etc - the folly of cramped waiting areas is all too obvious now that Covid has happened, and they'll have to find ways of stopping dozens of people sat around waiting in small spaces to help prevent future spreads of diseases etc.

On the ledger side, the care home "wins" when a resident dies, taking a share of the residual value of the flat or room. The estate doesn't receive full market value back. Whether this would be helpful to the care home would depend on the property market at that time, residual demand for care home spaces or alternatively, other demand for care room and/or flats (rehabilitation of younger people/general housing).

Demographically, there was always going to be an excess of supply vs demand at a certain tipping point due to the baby boom cohort. This will escalate that tipping point.

Grimly, some younger people (50s, 60s, 70s) who may not otherwise have required a care home so soon or ever at all, may find themselves needing one due to permanent injury resulting from surviving coronavirus.

The one is a very sad "wait and see".

That will be what causes them to be nonviable
Our approach for managing elder care was already unviable it was just hidden.

Because of scientific advancement humans now have a much longer lifespan, sadly the healthspan falls considerably short of this increased lifespan, this is a big problem and our way of dealing with it was extremely 'heath Robinson'

Grimly, some younger people (50s, 60s, 70s) who may not otherwise have required a care home so soon or ever at all, may find themselves needing one due to permanent injury resulting from surviving coronavirus.

And probably an ever bigger number of people needing care because of health conditions not being treated at the moment (cancers, etc) due to hospitals shutting their doors to anything but emergencies and covids - our local hospital have stopped all cancer treatment for the foreseeable. That's going to mean more people dying a slow death due to cancer, most needing care. There'll be lots of other conditions which, untreated, will lead to permanent damage and more care being needed.