Drawing from data on 9,165 care homes, representing 96% of the GB market, our latest research reveals that fee inflation for self-funded elderly care homes is slowing in 2024, with occupancy rates recovering and agency costs easing.
Check out the key findings below, and download the full report to get detailed region-by-region analysis and insights into how self-funded fees have evolved over the past five years.
Key findings
Quoted self-funded fees:
- Nursing care: £1,567 / +7.1%
- Personal care: £1,200 / +9.2%
Regional analysis
Nursing care:
- Largest quoted fee increase seen in Wales (11.3%)
- Top 3 regions with highest average nursing care quoted fees:
- £1,801p/w London
- £1,737p/w South East
- £1,656p/w East of England
- Regional increases in nursing care quoted fees ranged from 5.4% to 11.3%
Personal care:
- Largest quoted fee increase seen in Scotland (14.3%)
- Top 3 regions with highest average personal care quoted fees:
- £1,456p/w London
- £1,390p/w Scotland
- £1,366p/w South East
- Regional increases in personal care quoted fees ranged from: 6.5% to 14.3%
CQC-rating (England only)
- Nursing care: 16% premium
- Personal care: 17% premium
Newest homes
- Quoted fees at homes registered since 2020
- Nursing care: 18% higher relative to all older stock
- Personal care: 27% higher relative to all older stock
- Average quoted fee for homes registered since 2020:
- Nursing care: £1,826
- Personal care: £1,507
En-suite provision
- Average self-funded quoted fees for homes with 90%+ wetroom provision:
- Nursing care: 16% higher relative to all other homes
- Personal care: 27% higher relative to all other homes
Outlook
Over the last couple of years extreme inflationary cost pressures have precipitated increases in self-funded fee rates, particularly in the context of a sector recovering from a sudden, tragic, and drastic reduction in occupancy.
As we sit here in 2024, it seems reasonable to suggest that the overall return to pre-pandemic occupancy levels, along with a reduction in non-staff cost inflation, has to a degree enabled operators to reduce the level of self-funded fee increases from those seen last year. That said, operators remain highly exposed to changes in staff costs due to increases in National Living Wage, which has limited the degree to which those increases can return to the historic norm of ~5% per year. Unless NLW increases are significantly lower in 2025, agency cost stay under control, and inflation remains at the low levels it currently sits at – we would not expect to see a significant further slowdown in self-funded fee increases.
The elderly care home sector is changing fast, so we endeavour to continue to provide clients and the wider sector with regular research into both self-funded and local authority fee rates. With that in mind, we plan to update our entire dataset again in 2025. If you would like us to explore any aspect of elderly care home fees across Great Britain in our next report, please get in touch via info@carterwood.co.uk and we’d be delighted to discuss it.
