Highland Council aims for National Insurance exemption for struggling north care homes after the region lost 218 beds since 2022
A move to push the UK government to grant care homes in the north an exemption from blistering National Insurance hikes has been unanimously backed by Highland Council.
Westminster will be asked to exempt local care homes from the Labour government’s significant rises in National Insurance payments in a bid to “avoid additional financial pressures” on the “already vulnerable” sector.
It will also invite the Secretary of State for Scotland Ian Murray to meet council group leaders to personally discuss the “specific circumstances affecting Highland care homes to help develop policy solutions to secure their future”.
Care homes are not alone, earlier we reported that Highland Hospice was dealt a major financial blow by the National Insurance hikes while MP Angus MacDonald warned care homes, pharmacies, GPs and dentists will also be hurt.
The move came from Councillor David Gregg who is also a doctor who sees first-hand the struggle NHS Highland has with finding suitable care packages and placements for those who have been hospitalised.
He had previously warned thatthe “potential collapse of the care home sector” in the Highlands would lead to “the collapse of the entire NHS”, adding: “Raigmore runs, Belford runs and Caithness General runs because patients are in care homes”.
Cllr Gregg also won the support of the chairman of the health and social care committee, Cllr David Fraser, who welcomed the move to ease financial burdens on those north care homes teetering on the brink of closure.
Arguing in support of the move,Cllr Gregg’s motion stated: “Council notes the 46 privately run care homes across the Highlands will not get any reimbursement for costs related to recent National Insurance changes.
“Council notes 85 per cent of our care homes already operate at a financial disadvantage due to the National Care Home Contract, which assumes 50 beds operating at 100 per cent capacity.
“Council notes the loss of 218 care home beds since 2022, and the distress each of these closures has caused to residents, their families, and local communities.”
