Next week's meeting of North Somerset Council's
executive will be considering changes to facilities at Ebdon
Court.
It is proposed that the building in Worle will retain the Severn
and Birnbeck day centres, there will be investment in establishing
a new technical centre, a centralised community meals facility will
be introduced and there will be a training facility, not only for
council staff but also to cater for training for independent care
providers and the voluntary sector.
The technical centre would be responsible for assessing,
arranging and in some cases fitting, telecare and tele-medicine
devices in the homes of individuals to meet care plans.
The Executive will also be asked to consider a
recommendation to initiate a three-month consultation process with
the intention of closing the Poppyfields residential home on the
site.
Council Leader, Cllr Nigel Ashton, said that the proposed
changes would help create a prevention-focused service designed to
help prevent older people from going into residential or nursing
care.
"These proposals will enable older people to lead full, active,
healthy and independent lives, for as long as possible.
"The Adult Social Care Strategic Review recommended focusing
resources on preventative services to achieve more effective use of
the budget and to meet the personal care needs of older people. The
recommendations in this report will help us achieve this."
A community meals kitchen would be established at Ebdon Court
utilising existing facilities. "This would mean relocating two of
the community meals kitchens from Oldmixon and Winscombe. Set-up
costs would be minimal and Worle is more centrally based for the
distribution of meals," added Cllr Ashton.
The training facility would be relocated from Partnership House
in Worle to enable the co-location of the Worle integrated health
and social care staff at Partnership House. The training facilities
would deliver training to the social care community for the
voluntary and independent sector as well as for council staff.
"We recognise that the proposal to close Poppyfields will not
sit easily with some. An 18 bed unit is uneconomic as Poppyfields
is 79% more expensive to deliver than the equivalent independent
sector service, and for the same resource we could commission care
for an additional 13 dementia care service users."
At the moment there are 12 residents in permanent care
there. In the Weston area there are six homes offering two or
three star services - these are of an equal or better standard to
what is offered at Poppyfields and there are enough vacancies to
meet the needs of all existing residents.
"Housing 21 had been identified as a partner to develop the
Ebdon Court site. Construction work there would have meant that
residents would have had to move and day care facilities could not
have continued on the site while building work took place. The
redevelopment cannot be secured within the budget and Housing 21
has confirmed their withdrawal from the project.
"However Housing 21 has successfully secured over £4.5m for the
development of 52 units at Diamond Court. This number is more than
twice the original allocation proposed for Ebdon Court and
there are also two significant independent sector dementia
specialist home care developments in the Weston and Worle area
which will increase the available dementia bed capacity," continued
Cllr Ashton.
"We are of course aware the effect these proposed changes will
have on staff and we are having meetings with them at the moment to
discuss possible arrangements. We will make every effort to
minimise job losses but redundancies cannot be ruled out.
"The changes we are proposing will save us money over time but
also offer the opportunity to improve the services we offer."
ENDS
