Hi Tom, I don't wish to be controversial but in this case you're wrong, not all private nursing homes make a lot of money. My father set up a 21 bed nursing home in 1989. For 5 years it made a loss and the family savings and a loan from my grandfather kept it open. For a further 10 years it broke even and then the business loan taken out to start it up was paid off and it began to slowly make small amounts of money. My dad used to work 90 hour weeks because he would work without pay. Before it filled up we lived there because my folks couldn't afford to run the home and a house. I know people think it is easy and a licence to print money but it isn't. It's a bloody hard slog, it's 24 hours, the staff are a pain in the arse and if anyone doesn't come in then family members have to make up the staff. Our home cares about residents, we know their likes, dislikes, hobbies, favourite foods. We talk to them, we take them on day trips, we try to find ways to entertain them. We know if they are ill and an illness will never be ignored. Most importantly my father doesn't believe in giving drugs to people to keep them quiet. They frequently arrive from hospital doped up to the eyeballs but he weans them off the tranquilisers and their personality reappears. I don't doubt there are some horrific homes out there run purely for profit and you probably see more than most but please don't think they are all like that because they aren't. The big thing at the moment is for the media to slag off nursing homes and I seem to spend hours defending them to various people. They aren't all bad, ours isn't and some people really put effort into making the final years of their resident's lives fulfilling, interesting and happy.