A SOCIAL care champion has called for senior councillors in Conwy to resign for ‘betraying’ vulnerable people in care homes.

According to Mario Kreft MBE, the chair of Care Forum Wales (CFW), cabinet members at Conwy County Council should hang their heads in shame after conducting ‘a sham review of care home fees’.

As a result of a recent review, there was no increase in residential care fees.

The rate for providing intensive nursing care for people with dementia has also risen by just £1 a day.

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It means Conwy pays £5,300 a year per resident less for the care of residents with dementia than they do across the border in Gwynedd.

So a 40-bed care home in Llanfairfechan in Conwy would receive £214,000 less a year than a similar sized home in Bangor – for providing exactly the same level of care that meets Welsh Government standards.

Insult to injury

Adding insult to injury, said Mr Kreft, was that the toolkit used by Conwy to set fees only allowed £4.80 a day for every resident for groceries and other household provisions.

In contrast, Conwy councillors claim up to £95 a night for overnight accommodation and £28 for meals – totalling £123 – when they’re away on council business.

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Mr Kreft said: “To say that allowing just £4.80 for groceries and provisions is derisory is probably the understatement of the year because that’s the equivalent of two takeaway coffees from the Co-op. Surely, people with dementia are worth more than that.

“It’s clear that councillors in Conwy have just gone through the motions before coming up with these paltry increases and no increase at all in the case of residential care.

“This sham of a review is an absolute betrayal of the most vulnerable people in our society, people with dementia who cannot fend for themselves.

“The fees paid by Conwy Council do not even come close to recognising the real cost of providing care.

“It is illegal for care homes to operate at a loss so this amounts to a stealth tax on hardworking, hard-pressed families who will increasingly have to make up the difference.”

Until earlier this year all six local authorities in North Wales had worked closely together in a joint approach to calculate care home fees in what CFW describe as a ‘fee-fixing cartel’ to manage their budget without meeting the real cost of care.

Anglesey and Gwynedd

Mr Kreft praised Gwynedd and Anglesey councils for breaking ranks with the four other local authorities in North Wales by announcing increases of up to 25% after carrying out their own reviews.

They were spurred into action after similar increases were agreed by councillors in Merthyr Tydfil who were given legal advice that it would be “unlawful” not to set their rates at a level that reflected the true cost of providing care.

What the council say

Cllr Penny Andow, Conwy’s cabinet member for integrated adult and community services, said. “Conwy County Borough Council works in partnership with care home providers to ensure that our care home fees are both fair and affordable and to ensure we can inform further increases for 2023/24.

“We are acutely aware that social care is underfunded and as such have been working with other local authorities across Wales to address this with Welsh Government.”