A care home operator based in Dorset has been accused by families across the county of treating their residents… with contempt. The BBC have found that ‘families of residents at Agincare homes say they received an extra daily charge of £6.47 at the start of April.’ Despite all of the deaths and failures of the government to ensure that all the warnings they had been given were heeded this private care home provider has decided to pass on all costs of PPE required for Covid-19 to the residents and their families.
The Chairman Mr Derek Luckhurst, a friend of South Dorset MP Richard Drax, has defended his ‘profiteering’ by blaming the rise on staff costs as well as the price of personal protection equipment (PPE) during the crisis.
However, even if this is perceived as an acceptable business practice resident’s families have pointed out that ‘the staff did not have any PPE before 15 April’. Therefore, Mr Luckhurst has been charging for something that the staff did not have access to.
‘I think it is outrageous that they are charging my mother £6.47 per day for the staff to wear PPE and for two weeks when the staff did not wear PPE.’ stated the daughter of one resident.
Derek Luckhurst
It must surely be a better practice to lobby the government and his friend Mr Drax and put pressure on them to help care homes a lot more by providing free or significantly lower cost PPE and not to be passing the cost on to the residents. This is especially the case as many residents are trapped and are not in a position to move to more benevolent providers.
In these times of despair and hardship it would seem prudent to ensure everything was being done for the residents and to ensure that the Agincare brand did not appear mercenary. It appears that this has not been the case.
James Finlayson
