THE chairman of CARE, the Caring Alliance For Rest Home Elderly, this week spoke of her delight that talks with Blackpool council were finally under way.

Maureen Horn said the meeting was "very productive" but remained tight-lipped about the details of the discussions.

She said: "I am very pleased that the council is listening to us and I would like to thank Councillor Bancroft for taking time to hear what we have to say. It is now time for the shouting to stop and the action to begin," she added.

CARE representatives met with Labour leader Coun George Bancroft, executive member for social services Councillor Sue Wright, social services director Steve Pullen and deputy leader Roy Fisher to thrash out their worries regarding the proposed closure of the eight council-run rest homes.

Another meeting has been arranged for today (August 24) and Mrs Horn is hopeful of further progress. But CARE press officer Steven Bate will not be present at today's discussion.

He was also banned from the last meeting after Coun Bancroft refused to speak to him, accusing Mr Bate of behaving in an "outrageous fashion."

Mr Bate said members of CARE had been "sworn to secrecy" about what went on at the previous meeting.

He was also concerned about the recently published social services' star ratings system for both council-run and private rest homes saying it was more about facilities than the quality of care provided by the staff.

"The system is flawed. It makes certain homes look good without taking into account the most important factor of care, which is staff contact time with the resident.

"The private sector has a much faster turnover of staff than the council-run homes and the staff in council-run homes are better qualified, too. "This means that the residents in the council-run homes get more consistent and better one-to-one care and the star ratings system that the social services have devised does not show this," he said.

"I am also concerned about the way in which the private sector vets their staff," he added.

Coun Sue Wright emphasised that the assessments for the star ratings, now in their second year, were carried out by a totally independent team of officers and the council in no way had any influence over what criteria were used to obtain the ratings.

Social services director Steve Pullen said care homes throughout Blackpool had the option of taking part in the grading system -- the Residential Domicilliary Benchmarking (RDB) -- and only those homes which are awarded stars were recommended by social services.

"I am very happy with the way the inspections are carried out. They are completely independent. We have no involvement or influence whatsoever with the results.

"The system looks at a whole range of induction and staff training issues and if some homes do not recruit satisfactorily it will be reflected in their rating.

"Homes are given feedback with their assessment which gives them the opportunity to improve on areas of care," he added.