![\"Collage](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/4c57d782-bc0f-4b06-95c6-e4ebeb8578ad.jpg\")
June and Arnold Powell<\/p>\nJune and Arnold Powell opened the first Springdene care home for the elderly in north London in 1969. Almost 60 years later, their grandson Theodore Powell is the chief executive of the company \u2014 the third generation to be running the family business.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy grandfather was a GP and he saw the care homes at the time, which he said were Dickensian, and he wanted to offer something better,\u201d Powell, 28, said. <\/p>\n
Springdene now has three homes in Hampstead, Muswell Hill and Enfield, with a total of 161 rooms. Generations of the same families have lived in its homes, which have survived such challenges as the \u201cwinter of discontent\u201d in the late Seventies, the 2008 financial crash, Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic. <\/p>\n
June and Arnold Powell<\/p>\n
But its future, as with so many independent care homes, looks uncertain. This year care home fees rose 10 per cent on average, according to the comparison site carehome.co.uk. Running costs have risen across the board, but the real sting has come from higher employment costs. <\/p>\n
Last year employer national insurance contributions went up from 13.8 per cent to 15 per cent, and the threshold at which they start making contributions fell from \u00a39,100 to \u00a35,000. Combined with an increase to the minimum wage, it cost independent care firms an additional \u00a32.8 billion last year (\u00a3940 million in additional national insurance contributions and \u00a31.85 billion in extra wage costs) according to the Nuffield Trust, a healthcare think tank. <\/p>\n
Martin Green, CEO of the charity Care England, said: \u201cIn the last 18 months we have seen significant cost increases, many of which have been deliberately placed on the sector by government actions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Care homes are passing some of the higher costs on to residents in an attempt to balance the books. Springdene will increase its weekly fees from April, from \u00a31,505 a week to \u00a31,590. This fee includes meals, laundry, 24-hour care and activities, but the rate increases if a resident needs a higher level of care. <\/p>\n
![\"Four](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/4fae4223-71a2-4b77-8bc7-cf52c9c0a820.jpg\")
Theodore\u2019s grandmother June, right, is still on the company\u2019s boardSpringdene Nursing & Care Homes<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels more difficult than ever and it\u2019s not clear if there is a future for our kind of homes,\u201d Powell said. His grandfather died in 2024, but his grandmother, whom he describes as a \u201ctotal warrior\u201d, is still on the company\u2019s board. Powell\u2019s mother is head of HR, his father is the medical director and his aunt is in charge of catering. <\/p>\n
In February last year the House of Lords added an amendment to the National Insurance Contributions Bill to exempt care homes from the increase. It voted overwhelmingly in favour of protecting the sector, but MPs overturned the amendment the following month.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Powell employs 150 people and his costs went up \u00a3250,000 due to the higher national insurance contributions. \u201cIt\u2019s an additional cost purely smacked on the bottom line. Many homes would\u2019ve been sunk by that,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe try really hard to pay our staff as well as we possibly can, but giving them more of a raise is becoming a real stretch. I think these policies have the right intention but they\u2019re misplaced; it\u2019s not increasing growth because all employers are wary of hiring more people or committing to increasing wages.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Springdene pays the London living wage of \u00a314.80 an hour, which is about \u00a328,800 a year based on a 37.5-hour week. This has increased about 7 per cent over the past two years, which Powell has offset with a rise of 5.5 per cent in fees for self-funded residents.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Margaret](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/861b6c04-1fd4-4e85-be0e-48325a0a36e4.jpg\")
Margaret Thatcher and June at the opening of the company\u2019s Springview home in Enfield in 1986Springdene Nursing & Care Homes<\/p>\n
But Springdene is making a loss on some residents whose care is funded by the local authority. While rates for private residents start at \u00a31,590 a week, councils pay between \u00a3800 and \u00a31,000 a week, regardless of the level of care required.<\/p>\n
The council uses its purchasing power to negotiate lower prices than those paying for their own care, and the amount paid often is not enough to cover the actual cost to the care home. \u201cLocal authorities don\u2019t recognise that different residents have different needs. Whether or not someone is in a wheelchair, needing hoisting, needing help with feeding, dementia, they will give us the same amount of money as for someone who is totally fit and well,\u201d Powell said. <\/p>\n
\u201cTen years ago our price difference between self-funding and local authority funding was about 10 to 20 per cent, but the disparity now is huge because our costs keep increasing but the local authorities pay the same as they did a decade ago.\u201d <\/p>\n
In most cases, only those with assets worth less than \u00a323,250 qualify for state-funded care in a residential or nursing home, and this includes the value of their main property. Some of Springdene\u2019s residents were self-funded before they ran out of money, but an application to get funding from the local authority can take up to a year. Powell said during this time Springdene continued to support them without payment. <\/p>\n
He said: \u201cI\u2019m entirely committed to this business and the ethos my grandparents created. There\u2019s a great need and with the right support there could be a future, but there needs to be a credible plan for how the sector, and people\u2019s care, is going to be funded.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019ve seen four homes close in the past two years\u2019<\/p>\n
![\"Kim](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/5ea59669-9833-4836-ba2b-3aefc05d16e9.jpg\")
Kim Northwood with residents at the Gables care home in WorcestershireANDREW FOX for the Sunday Times<\/p>\n
Kim Northwood\u2019s daughter Lindsey Clark, a GP practice manager, bought The Gables care home in Worcestershire with two of the doctors from her surgery in 2019. Northwood manages the 30-bed home. <\/p>\n
In February last year she joined some 3,000 workers from the care sector to demonstrate in Westminster against the rise in national insurance contributions, which cost The Gables \u00a360,000 last year. \u201cWe won\u2019t close, but the way things are going, many others will,\u201d Northwood said. \u201cI\u2019ve seen four independent care homes in our area close in the past two years.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Gables is breaking even, but its wage bill has gone up 9 per cent over the past three years, while its income is up only 1 per cent. The home charges self-funded residents the same as the local authority pays, which is \u00a3900 a week, going up to \u00a3950 a week in April.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The average in the West Midlands is \u00a31,173 a week, but Northwood is determined to keep the cost affordable. She said: \u201cNobody seems to care, politicians are never in this situation so they don\u2019t know. We shouldn\u2019t have to be shouldering this.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been in this sector since 1984. I\u2019ve seen report after report telling us exactly what\u2019s wrong. The problem isn\u2019t a lack of understanding it\u2019s a lack of action.\u201d<\/p>\n
How to pay for rising care costs<\/p>\n
It is generally advised to budget about \u00a3100,000 a year for care costs in the last three years of your life, but a middle-aged person today could face a bill of nearly \u00a31 million by the time they need care. Early financial planning is essential to avoid care costs rapidly depleting your estate.<\/p>\n
Those who pay for their own care are often effectively subsidising those who are covered by the local authority. A self-funded resident pays an average of \u00a3370 more a week than a council-funded resident. <\/p>\n
As it is hard to know how many years of care you may need<\/a>, an immediate needs annuity can provide peace of mind. This is an insurance policy where an upfront lump sum secures a guaranteed monthly payment for care fees for the rest of your life. The payments are made direct to the care home, so are not liable to income tax, and you can opt for a policy that increases each year as the fees rise.<\/p>\n Money newsletter<\/p>\n The latest personal finance and investment news from our money team.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tSign up with one click<\/p>\n However, the upfront cost is high \u2014 typically in the tens of thousands of pounds \u2014 and you may get back less than you pay in if your stay is short.<\/p>\n The pension power up newsletter<\/p>\n Sign up to our newsletter series to supercharge your retirement.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tSign up with one click<\/p>\n If someone has serious health complications and needs care, they could be entitled to NHS continuing healthcare. It covers 100 per cent of costs and, unlike funding for standard social care, is not means-tested, so assets are not taken into account when deciding if someone qualifies. But the system is notoriously difficult to navigate and rejection is high, with only about 20 per cent of applicants successful in England.<\/p>\n Many people fail to make arrangements because they cannot imagine themselves needing support. In reality, the move into care is often triggered by sudden events like a fall, a stroke, or a dementia diagnosis rather than a gradual decline. Take a \u201cmid-retirement MoT\u201d<\/a> to assess how your pension and property could be used to fund care in case a crisis hits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"June and Arnold Powell opened the first Springdene care home for the elderly in north London in 1969.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351971,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[163,521,85,46],"class_list":["post-351970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}