Care Home Market Shrunk In 2022

Following two years of nominal growth in care home beds achieved between openings and closures during the year, the care home for older people market in England shrunk in 2022.

As a continuing trend over a number of years around two care homes have closed for every one that has opened. However the new homes are larger than those that close which has reduced the net loss of beds.

According to CSI Market Intelligence in their eight annual report Say Hello Wave Goodbye 2022, 123 care homes opened against 247 closures, with a net loss of 230 beds. The openings were the lowest since 2015 and were 23% down on openings in 2021.

The openings equate to around only 1.3% market increase, against a 2.6% decrease through closures. This is much in line with the average number of care home openings and closures since 2015, when CSI Market Intelligence began their reporting.

On a regional basis there were only two that gained beds across the year, in London and West Midlands, whilst the largest number of losses were in the South East, South West and Nort West.

Mike Short, Founder and Director at CSI Market Intelligence, said, ‘When one considers the commercial pressures that are being experienced within the care home market, and varied quality of stock in the marketplace, shedding 2.5% of all homes each year is not that massive.

‘However, with a fast increasing ageing population, it is the number of new homes that needs to be higher than we have been experiencing over the last eight years.’

Say Hello Wave Goodbye 2022 is available to download via the CSI Market Intelligence website.