Furor is mounting in the UK where 12 councils have resorted to online bidding by aged care facilities for residents.

The local councils control the residential aged care packages that service the regional council ageing population, including retirement village residents. They are now placing the anonymous residents up for competitive tender bids. They detail the nature of the resident including their age, what care is required and their medication.

While the councils claim the winning bid is based on quality of care, a Freedom of Information search identified that 92% of the winning bids were the lowest cost bid. The software program, called SProc.net, allocates the winning bid.

The process has been criticised as treating the elderly like ‘cattle’.
Like eBay, if the care provider sees they are the second lowest bid they can adjust their price down before the close off time.

Birmingham Council has been using the software and online auction system for three years and claims it has reduced care expenditure by almost 20%. Another 30 councils are looking at the software.

The company behind SProc.net, Matrix SCM, specialises in managing expenditure by public sector organisations, controlling annualised spend on services exceeding £400m on behalf of 70 public sector organisations throughout the UK.

Customers include, local authorities, housing associations, police authorities, schools and universities