Torbay care homes facing new challenges

Ageing population creates pressures on services

Care homes across Torbay are facing ‘multiple and complex’ challenges, according to a new report.

Rising costs and increasing demand from an elderly population with complex needs are driving the issues faced by the 76 homes providing care to residents in Torquay, Paignton and Brixham.

Three quarters of them are residential care homes, with the rest nursing care homes. Older people account for 82 per cent of the beds, with 11 per cent for people with a learning disability and the rest specialising in mental health care.

Torbay Council oversees the bay’s care homes, and a report to a committee on adult social care and health outlines some of the challenges.

The report says: “The challenges we face are multiple and complex to solve.”

It says rising costs and demand come as a result of a larger number of older people in the bay, with increased needs including dementia, long-term medical conditions and frailty.

There are also increasing pressures through the NHS system to discharge people from hospital quickly.

The reports says the bay’s future plans are for a move away from traditional residential care towards more supported living, which will allow people to stay as independent as possible with access to the care they need.

It goes on to say that a higher range of nursing skills needs to be developed by ‘upskilling’ staff to work with the growing number of patients suffering dementia and other conditions.

The report also says there is ‘considerable financial risk’ in the care home sector as prices and demand rise.

The council’s strategy is to help more people stay in their own homes and cut down the use of residential care to meet social care needs. “The Council is committed to working in a way that promotes well-being, independence and recovery,” says the report.