GOVERNMENT moves to ease the crisis in the care home industry have received a cautious response from the Trafford care home owners group TORCH.

Health secretary Alan Milburn announced that regulations on standards blamed for the closure of care homes would no longer be mandatory.

And he also said funding would be increased to allow councils to pay higher fees to owners.

The high cost of meeting rules introduced in the Care Standards Act has been cited as a major cause of home closures. These standards cover everything from the size of rooms to the number of baths.

The crisis in the care home industry has seen more than 500 care home beds lost in Trafford over the past two and a half years, and tens of thousands nationally.

Mr Milburn said more resources would be provided from next April to allow local councils to pay higher fees.

A spokesman for Trafford Owners of Registered Care Homes (TORCH) said that the Government seemed to accept that care homes were under funded, but there was no guarantee that care home owners would benefit from the extra cash: "Precisely where and how any new funds will be allocated has not been identified and they have not been in any way ring fenced for care homes. As a result there is no more guarantee now, than there has been in the past, that local authorities will spend any money they receive on helping to slow down the closure of care homes, and the care provided for elderly people within those that remain.

"It is very likely that under these circumstances local authorities will continue to spend increasing sums of money in supporting elderly people in their own homes, where standards of care are not monitored (no Care Standards Act or inspection units operating here), and where the amount of support required cannot be guaranteed as appropriate, other than by a criteria set by social services to meet their own arbitrary funding allocations."

cgriffin@messengergrp.co.uk