There’s been plenty in the media about care homes recently, for two reasons. The first is that Southern Cross, a leading operator of care homes, is in serious financial straits after falling foul of a bad business deal carried out some years ago. As a result, they may need to close a large number of properties. You might be forgiven for believing that care home manager jobs will be decreasing in the near future, along with other related positions (such as nursing home manager jobs) as the sector contracts in difficult economic times. However, whatever problems Southern Cross are having are not a good reflection of the state of the sector in general. Home manager jobs will become increasingly important as time goes on, for one simple reason: demand is expanding.

The government has described Southern Cross’s woes as a ‘commercial sector problem’ and will not move in to intervene directly – although they say they are ‘monitoring’ the situation. Talks with landlords to reduce rent payments are under way, and it may well be that the company passes on a proportion of its homes to other businesses. However, in the long run care homes, and the positions that go with them, are not under threat. Those that operate under shaky business models will get into trouble, but that is true of any business, especially in a downturn. The second news story explains why this is only a short-term problem. The OECD reported that demographic changes mean that the UK will spend a significantly larger proportion of its GDP (perhaps twice as much or more in some reports) on elderly care by 2050.

That means more homes, and therefore more care home manager jobs. A different model might be preferred in the future – again thanks to negative recent news stories. Nursing home manager jobs could be required for smaller operations, rather than the large institutions currently favoured. Instead, places housing perhaps only a couple of dozen patients may become more normal, offering smaller-scale and more local help to those who need it. Home manager jobs will be more common, though they may be broader in scope, too. But whatever the landscape of vacancies in the future, the figures speak for themselves. The country is undergoing significant changes in terms of population distribution, and that will have a huge impact on the delivery of care over the coming years and decades.

Please visit http://www.aboutcare.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

http://www.aboutcare.co.uk/

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