Most commentators say the rents Southern Cross pays for its homes are the reason the company is struggling. This is the direct result of the company's decision to sell its homes and then lease them back a number of years ago.
However, Mr Fisher argued that continuing to borrow from banks would have caused greater problems.
"We could have borrowed money, but lease structures create greater stability than bank borrowing, that might typically have a five-year term," he said.
The GMB union said there was "a conspicuous absence of the staff's voice" in discussions about the future of Southern Cross. "GMB believes the time is now right for the company, the landlords, the government and the union to come together," said GMB national officer Justin Bowden.
Mr Bowden said it was an "unpalatable fact" that the rents for Southern Cross properties were 100m a year above market clearing rates.
"The landlords will have to take the hit to enable Southern Cross to provide a decent standard of care for the 31,000 elderly and vulnerable residents," he added.
Care standards
Some observers have also suggested that a lack of investment has affected the quality of care on offer at Southern Cross homes, which has in turn reduced occupancy levels.
At the end of September last year, the number of homes run by the company in England rated as good by the Care Quality Commission, expressed as a percentage of the total number run by Southern Cross, was in line with the national average – 67.7% against 68.6%.
However, it underperformed the national average in the percentage of homes ranked poor (2.8% against a national average of 0.5%), adequate (14.6% against 8.6%) and excellent (14.6% against 20.8%).
Mr Fisher said the company had given "complete priority to improving standards of care" in the past two years.
"I'm very sorry that the difficulties we are experiencing at corporate level are creating a degree of uncertainty and concern for our residents and their relatives, and for our staff and their relatives," he said.
Southern Cross is by far the largest care home operator in the UK and currently runs 752 homes with 31,000 residents and has been struggling with high rents of about 200m a year.
It has already deferred 30% of its rent to its 80 landlords for four months.
source: bbcuk
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Source: http://arsipberita.com/show/southern-cross-says-care-will-be-sustained-245979.html
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