some care homes could go under as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak

May 28, 2020

As we have seen reported by the BBC and the Financial Times, across the care sector costs are rising sharply due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The higher staff cost and lower occupancy rates are putting significant pressures on the sector and with typical care home staff costs running at close to 60% of overheads, this is a situation that is nothing less than critical.

As of the 8th May nearly 10,000 people have died in English care homes with Covid-19, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Reported by the Financial Times, care homes usually have about 88% of occupancy rates but that has declined by 4% to 8% in April as a result of high death rates and fewer people coming into care homes, according to Care England.

Mike Padgham, who is chairman of the Independent Care Group and himself has four homes in North Yorkshire, said he was ‘worried about the rising costs of the pandemic, including Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to extra staff cover for those self-isolating as well as the lost income from empty beds’. He has stated in his interview with the BBC that ‘some providers will sadly go up the wall as a result of the outbreak’.

Additional increased costs such as the National Living Wage, Apprenticeship Levy, Workplace Pension and agency staff fees coupled with a range of operational, compliance and regulatory pressures will inevitably have an unprecedented affect on local communities and economies. With the current focus on diet, lifestyle and the resulting increased longevity we all need a healthy care sector, especially those with relatives that are currently reliant on the essential services it provides. Here at the ShopWorks we witness first hand the struggles our care customers are facing. 

So to help the sector we offer an extensive and complimentary Workforce Management Consultancy Service package that also includes an extensive free trial of all the essential modern day processes and functionality essential for managing costs and maximising efficiency without affecting service.

The complimentary consultancy package will include; 

  • Free use of the ShopWorks platform for 3 months
  • Health check and breakdown on the available savings for your staffing operations, including;
    • Ability to plan ahead to ensure the resources you have are effectively used.
    • The above enables a view of all Staffing costs against budgets that are visible to nominated users who ensure costs are controlled.
    • Contracted hours reports and analysis of planned hours against actual hours worked
    • Improved Payroll administration of the above actual hours worked, to assist Payroll data submission.
    • Biometrics analysis – how close planned rotas match against what was actually needed, as well as how many shifts needed manual confirmation of the hours worked.
    • Rota reporting allowing to record and monitor absence within your organisation. 

To discuss this further contact Lee Bowden, Co Founder & CCO at lee@theshopworks.com or simply request a demo here.

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