Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Lamb and Councillor Sharp.  Councillor Maqbool was in attendance as substitute for Councillor Lamb and Councillor Harrington was in attendance as substitute for Councillor Sharp.

At this point Members must declare whether they have a disclosable pecuniary interest, or other interest, in any of the items on the agenda, unless it is already entered in the register of members’ interests or is a “pending notification “ that has been disclosed to the Solicitor to the Council.

Members must also declare if they are subject to their party group whip in relation to any items under consideration.

Councillor Maqbool declared that one of the Care Homes was in her ward.

The Chairman introduced the item and advised that five people had registered to speak at the meeting. The Chairman addressed the audience and read out the procedure for how the Commission would hear from speakers in the audience and the order in which the item would be dealt with.  The Chair also advised that since receiving the papers the Committee had requested a further financial breakdown and this would be explained by the Director of Adult Social Care during the meeting.

The Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care was then invited to introduce the report which asked the Commission to consider, challenge and comment on the Cabinet report which had recommended to Cabinet the proposed closure of two care homes:  Greenwood House and Welland House. The Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care explained the reasoning behind the recommendation to close the two homes that had been put forward to Cabinet. 

The Assistant Director Strategic Commissioning informed the Commission that the Older Peoples Accommodation Strategy set out the need for accommodation for the medium term. It built on the previous strategy, reviewed local data and demographics and projections of need.  The aim was to enable as many old people in Peterborough to maintain their independence and be able to live in accommodation which was of high quality.  The Assistant Director Strategic Commissioning went through the strategy highlighting the key points and spoke about the reasoning behind the proposal to close Greenwood House and Welland House.  The closure of the homes would reduce financial implications and allow investment in a new dementia facility.   Members were informed of the wide range of support that would be given to residents, families of residents and staff throughout the consultation process and if the homes were to close.  Support would be given to residents on an individual basis to support their needs.  Members were assured that alternative day care and respite care would continue to be provided to meet the individual needs of the service users.

The Director of Adult Social Care provided further financial information which consisted of the following:

• Breakdown of costs for the closure of both homes and when the break-even point would be.
• Breakdown of redundancy costs
• Costs of moving people to new accommodation (permanent, respite or day care)
• Costings of the proposed new Dementia Resource Centre
• Residential Care Home Budgets

The Chair invited members of the public to address the Commission.

Donna Bennett, Peri Night Care Assistant at Welland House and Greenwood House and a member of UNITE made a statement which included the following:

·         The services that the two care homes provided were specialist services that were not met in the private sector.

·         It had been stated that there was up to 60 places a week available in the private sector but they did not offer the type of places required by the service users of the two homes.

·         Peterborough older people population projections showed that there would be an increase from 1686 people to 1882 people by the year  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

Tuesday, 13 November 2012