Labour demands u-turn on Wirral care home closures

Mar 2 2011 by Liam Murphy, Birkenhead News

LABOUR was due to call for a U-turn by Wirral Council’s leading groups over their plans to shut care and respite homes when the authority met last night to finalise its budget.

Details of the budget were revealed by the council’s Conservative and Liberal Democrat-controlled cabinet last week, and were to be put before the full council on Tuesday.

Highlights include a freeze on council tax and plans to invest heavily in renewable energy, but cuts also see 1,100 staff leave the council through voluntary redundancy or early retirement, as well as the closure of five council-run care homes.

However, an amendment submitted by the Labour group targeting these closures said: “The council is moving too far too fast and the consequence is growing levels of fear and confusion with the attendant risk, in some cases, that a breaking point will be triggered, leading to higher levels of demand for more costly residential care.”

The Labour group will also be calling for the Wirral Home Assessment Re-ablement Team (Hart) service to be retained in-house by the council, over concerns that this will lead to higher costs for the authority in the longer term.

The Labour amendment specifically calls for Mapleholme to stay open “in line with the recommendations made at Cabinet in November, 2009, following a lengthy and detailed consultation”.

And the opposition group are also demanding “the closure of Pensall, Poulton, Meadowcroft and Fernleigh is postponed for a period of at least six months”, in order to ensure alternative services are in place and service users and their families have been “properly consulted”.