Market insight
Covid impact on the care home market
The care home market was already facing structural problems when the pandemic struck. CSI Market Intelligence founder and director Mike Short takes a look at the figures and makes sense of the impact of Covid-19 on the marketplace
When I was approached in the summer to write this article, I had hoped the impact of Covid-19 on care homes would be somewhat short lived. Yet as I write in things are changing on a daily basis and it is now clear we are in it for the long haul. The government’s mismanagement of the crisis - specifically with regard to regular testing in care homes and lockdown policy U-turns with measures tightened, eased and once again tightened – and, above all, its unmet promise to “fix social care” means we are all still in turmoil.
We are all extremely worried about how a second spike of the virus will continue to affect those operating,
working and living in care homes going into the colder winter months, not to mention the ability of relatives, like myself, to eventually visit their loved ones. As the virus, arguments and lobbying continue, I have looked at what has been happening within this market sector with regard to openings, closures and changes of ownerships both in the first quarter of 2020 pre-Covid and subsequent ‘Covid months’ between April and August. Obviously, openings and changes of ownership do not happen overnight, but by measuring what did occur we can estimate to some extent what pent up activity is likely to occur if and when the Covid dust settles.
To put in place a starting point and context of where we were at the start of 2020, the number of care home beds in England had shrunk by around 10,000 (2.5 per cent) over the past five years due to higher levels of closures than openings. Meanwhile, the population aged 75- plus, which accounts for around 90 per cent of all care home beds, had grown by around nearly half a million (11 per cent) during that same period. That same age group will grow by a further 19 per cent by 2025, and so a reversal in current trends is essential.
As we at CSI have cited repeatedly, supply levels across the country vary greatly. Areas of high supply have up to 150 beds per 1,000 population aged 75- plus, but as low as 26 beds per 1,000 where supply is low - a sixfold variance. Therefore, current supply levels are decreasing on both a national basis and on a local basis are in a mess.
Without any re-admissions, the care home population would have dropped below 300,000 - an average 73 per cent occupancy level
42
A great start to the year First the good news. The year 2020 started with promise, as care home openings during the first quarter were up by 79 per cent year on year, with an 83 per cent increase on the number of new beds. Then came lockdown in March, and things stalled or even stopped as developers, investors, lenders, sellers, and buyers stopped and took a deep breath. From a 79 per cent year-on-year increase prior to lockdown, openings during the ‘Covid months’ dropped by 8 per cent year on year. Without Covid 19 - and if the year-on-year increase had continued from quarter one - there might have been an extra 50 new homes and a much-needed 3,000 new beds. In total, there were 49 different providers across the 55 openings, with over a third of them as new providers. Welcome to the sector, guys! There were four groups who between them made up about a fifth of all openings.
www.thecarehomeenvironment.com • November 2020
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54
