Homes closures: you will see we were right

Government guidelines, the Social Services Inspectorate and, indeed, many elderly people themselves indicate that we do not do enough to help them to live independently.

Over recent times we have spent too much money on too many residential care places that were not necessary and were not used. In effect, we have been paying for empty residential care beds all across the borough. That has meant that we have not had enough money to spend on the range of alternatives that elderly people actually want.

The recent closure of Claremont EPH in Prestwich, which incidentally housed only 15 long-stay residents when it had a capacity of 40, was done with that in mind.

Every person from Claremont was moved after careful consultation and consideration of their needs. The National Care Standards Council recently congratulated the staff for their sensitive handling of the long-awaited closure.

Attempts by some to portray recent changes as a lessening in services are misguided and in some cases a cheap attempt to score long-term political points by creating a climate of fear for elderly people. It is also simply untrue.

The fact is that we are widening provision across the borough and across Prestwich. There is no way that I, or my Labour colleagues, would want anything else. We want to do more to assist people in need, not less.

By closing a home that was half empty and had poor facilities, our policy ensures that we can now spend those resources on other elderly persons services. Previously, elderly people may have had to go into a residential home because the council could not provide them with assistance and support in their own home, something they may have needed for only a couple of hours a day.

We will spend more to expand this service. This will mean that more people can receive care in their own home if they want to try and stay there.

We are now spending more on expanding our sheltered housing scheme to ensure that we can place people somewhere where support is on hand whilst they live independently, if that is what they want.

After discharge from hospital, elderly people often have no-one who can look after them for the first few weeks. Because they need care, they go into a residential home: and sometimes never leave.

A hospital stay can often be the last step on the conveyor belt to residential care. It should not be, and we are now spending more on staff to help and care for elderly people for the first few weeks after they leave hospital, so that they have the chance to live at home again, if that is what they want.

Those are just a few examples of the services available. There are more which will not fit into a short letter. Efforts to expand other provision are continually made so that our service to elderly people will be improved further in the future.

In the end, this is about choice. People will still have the ability to go into residential care homes if they want. But, if we spend all the available resources on residential care which is unnecessary, then we take away our ability to offer a whole range of opportunities to other elderly people who could do with a bit of assistance but do not need or want to go into residential care. Of course, people who want and need residential care should have that option. They still do, even after the closure of Claremont there are more than enough beds in the residential care sector to cope.

This is not an attempt to reduce services, it is an attempt to meet the needs and wants of an important section of our community. Over the coming months people will increasingly see this policy as a benefit to the community and the correct direction to take.

COUNCILLOR GILL CAMPBELL