Agenda item

 The Committee received a report of the Director of Adult and Community Services the purpose of which was to give details of the background and outcome of the consultation and in particular the outcome of the consultation in relation to the proposal to reconfigure Intensive Day Care Centres from four to two.

• The Director presented the report to the committee; in particular she referred to the following: Key themes to emerge from the consultation in relation to the proposed closure of Tangley Hall were:
  • Transport issues and journey times.
  • Concerns regarding the maintenance of staffing levels and quality of service provided
  • Suggestions for alternative proposals

The Director explained that these alternative proposals were included in the report along with the council responses to those proposals.  In addition she referred to the proposal received from Ms Pinnell and Mr Hunter described in the public representations heard in the last item.  A letter of response had been circulated to members for this proposal.  The consultation had been open and clear and all suggestions and comments considered carefully, in particular they had been assessed in terms of their ability to deliver the same level of service and provide continuity of care for all users.

In relation to journey times, the council had received two formal complaints regarding its research and assessment of possible journey times under the proposed arrangements for two centres, one at Sheen and one at Ham.  She explained that there were certain assumptions required to make the assessment such as numbers transferring to other centres and that further work would be done to ensure minimum journey times on a person by person basis when any changes did occur.

Finally the Director referred to the report provided by Dr Turner, she apologised for the lack of specific information but explained that Dr Turner had been drafted in late on after the withdrawal of the intended author on the grounds that she felt compromised in performing the task.  Dr Turner’s report however was useful and independent and would inform any future decision making.

The Committee heard representations from those members of the public who had registered to speak:

Mrs Nan Bunn addressed the Committee:

• She referred to the journey times contained in the report.  She felt that they were misleading as they were based on the transferral of all the people from Tangley Hall to Ham which she didn’t think would be the case.
• She asked the committee to address 3 issues:
  • The need for person by person transport assessments based on individual care needs
  • How the results of any new strategy would be measured against the Department of Health’s desire to see greater local accountability
  • That the local authority should strive to secure shares of any new funding to facilitate their work in Social Care

In response to questions from the committee Mrs Bunn made the following additional comments:

• That she believed the council would suffer financially from people who would stop using the service as opposed to moving from Tangley and Ham.  This would also affect the predicted journey times.
• That the predicted journey times allowed 8 minutes fro picking up of users at there homes.  She felt that this was unrealistic given the difficulties associated with dementia sufferers and referred to the fact that it would sometimes have taken 20 minutes to get her mother on to the bus when she attended Tangley Hall.

Ms Pinnell addressed the Committee:

• She referred to the proposal that she and Mr Hunter had put forward which involved moving the users of Sheen to Ham.  One of the benefits of this scheme was that there were already users of the Sheen centre living in Ham.  In addition it would enable provision of service to be maintained on either side of the Borough and would maintain current levels of care.

Mr Paul Leonard addressed the Committee

• He argued that there were high numbers of elderly people in the Borough and about a third of these were not known to the Local Authority.  There was an opportunity to increase usage of Day centres in order to make all four viable.
• That even discounting additional distance to Ham the buses would still take as long to board and alight. 
• That the building used for Twickenham centre was under a long lease and there may be costs involved in coming out of the agreement early.

[The committee voted to extend the committee guillotine for 30 minutes in accordance with procedure rule 17 a vii].

Mrs Vivienne Heard addressed the Committee:

• She urged the committee to consider better promotion of the Day Centres as a means to increasing usage.  In particular she felt that families should be encouraged to visit the centres in order to dispel any negative preconceptions that people may hold.
• She felt that the journey time predictions were optimistic and that although they may be mathematically correct they didn’t take into account the various things that could take lots of additional time such as toilet stops for example.

The committee made the following comments:

(a)   That it noted and shared the concerns of the public regarding transport times and urged officers to do all they could to limit them.

(b)   That officers be urged to consider all comments and proposals carefully and, that parts of proposals be used where appropriate.

(c)   That it had confidence in the officers of the council and thanked them for the huge efforts made so far to accommodate members of the public and Task group concerns and comments.

It was RESOLVED:

1. That the information in the report be noted;
   
   
2. That authority be delegated to the Chair of the Committee to address the concerns of the committee noted at (a) and (b) above in her representations to Cabinet on 24^th January 2011.