Care homes are set to receive a total of £495,000 to meet increasing costs

Each care home will receive £15,000 to meet costs, which have sky-rocketed as care homes face staff sickness, accepting admissions at short notice, PPE costs, and in increased use of agency staff.

Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council (RMBC) has been allocated two grants from the government totalling £16.2m to support the additional costs associated with its response to Covid-19.

A further 60 beds may also be needed, as the coronavirus impacts on the hospital system.

At a meeting of RMBC's cabinet today (May 11), councillors voted unanimously to grant care homes in the borough £15,000 each, to help them deal with the costs of increased workforce pressures due to higher levels of staff absence caused by the outbreak.

Currently, there are 34 care homes for older people in Rotherham with a total capacity of 1,657 beds in the independent sector.

There are also a further 120 beds across the two care homes operated by the council - Lord Hardy and Davies Court. The complete capacity of bed stock for the borough is 1,777 beds.

Councillor David Roche said during the meeting: "In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the government has put in place new guidelines regarding hospital discharge processes, that now must be facilitated within three hours. This is putting significant pressure on independent sector care homes, who are taking on new residents at short notice, or quickly re-admitting residents from hospital.

"We need to make sure that care homes' sustainability is there, so they when we come out of all this, the care homes are still there to support Rotherham residents.

"The care homes, like all other areas of adult care are being impacted by the virus. They are incurring additional costs, increased PPE costs, accepting new residents at short notice, sickness levels. And due to sickness levels, increased agency costs."

Each care home in the borough will be given a fixed upfront payment of £15,000 to support their expenditure over a 12-week period, backdated from April 1.

A contingency fund of £100k is also in place for any further exceptional costs.

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