By Tom Bodden And Tom Barton

22 Aug, 2002

Page 7

CARE home owners are to step up pressure on Welsh Health Minister Jane Hutt to follow England and scrap crippling demands to upgrade homes for the elderly.

Leaders of private care home businesses will take their plea to the minister at a meeting early next month.

Westminster Health Secretary Alan Milburn announced a major U-turn by proposing to drop demands for existing homes to upgrade facilities and increase minimum room sizes in England.

And Mario Kreft, a private sector home provider in Wrexham, said yesterday: 'If Jane Hutt carries on in Wales against all the advice and closures we are seeing, the consequences will be further closures.

'Losing a care home is like losing a cottage hospital, and Wales is already seeing the loss of community-based provision,' said Mr Kreft, who runs Pendine Park Care Homes in Wrexham.

'We are expected to do everything for pounds 1.39 an hour, or pounds 33.46 a day - three meals, board and lodging, activities and care.'

Tory Shadow Welsh Secretary Nigel Evans said yesterday: 'Jane Hutt should make an immediate statement to end uncertainty and the concern among residents and their families over the future of homes.'

An Assembly spokeswoman confirmed that the changes outlined in Mr Milburn's statement would not carry across to Wales where standards were separately regulated.

'We are now considering whether there is any need for adjustment here consistent with the need to raise the quality of care for vulnerable people.'

A quarter of elderly care homes in Wrexham considered closing their doors in the last 12 months, according to a survey by Liberal Democrats.

More than 20 residential beds have closed in the county since the start of the year, while 140 have disappeared in the past two years.

The main reason was the low fees paid to homes by local authorities.