Market intelligence
Somerset and Halton, all the local authorities have much lower than average supply levels and therefore cannot really have afforded losing such a large share of their care homes. One hopes that the adult social services in these local authorities have a plan to improve supply levels within their remits. Those who do not understand the care home sector - this list would include the media and certain people within government - believe it to be dominated by global offshore set-ups who take local authority funding and spend it on shareholders rather than residents, as a recent Panorama programme suggested. In reality, while it is dominated by the
private sector - having around 84 per cent market share - most providers are small concerns, not big players. The industry-recognised ‘top six’ care
providers had an 11 per cent market share in 2015, which has since dropped below ten per cent, albeit with variable fortunes for different providers (see Figure 4). Four Seasons and BUPA held one and two
rankings with around 5.3 per cent share in 2015, which has dwindled to 2.4 per cent and the loss of nearly 600 homes and 20,000 beds between them. However, only around
Company
Four seasons BUPA Group
HC-One Limited
Barchester Healthcare Care UK Anchor
Total top six Figure 4. Share of care home market by provider
ten per cent of those homes were closed, the majority being sold on. The remaining four providers have
increased their market shares by up to half of one per cent with HC-One and Barchester respectively now taking over the top two rankings.
It is interesting to note that at the other end of the business scale, while the ‘top six’ operate around 950 care homes, 380 homes are owned by individuals, i.e. sole proprietors or partnerships who do not even have the relative protection of a limited company let alone a complicated corporate structure to hide behind.
The next seven years So what about the next seven years? As this magazine is being published, millions of people will be readying themselves for an extra 1.5 per cent to come out of their monthly wage packets to help the NHS catch up on a long waiting list caused by Covid and to ‘fix social care’, albeit with the vast majority of the income going to the former. Although we now have a new
government initiative to increase financial support for social care, we can still not be certain how the sector will be funded and managed in seven years-time. One thing we do know is that the older age population
Share of care homes 2015
2.9% 2.4% 2.1% 1.6% 1.0% 1.0%
11.0%
2022 1.1%
1.3% 2.6% 2.2% 1.5% 1.2%
9.8%
April 2022
www.thecarehomeenvironment.com
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