Edward Garnier Writes to County Council about Residential Homes for the Elderly in Market Harborough and Wigston
Edward Garnier has written to the Director of Adult Social Care and Health at County Hall in response to the County’s consultation exercise to ensure that his constituents’ needs are met. Speaking today the MP said, “I am sure, having spoken to County Councillors that nothing will be done adversely to affect the interests of my elderly constituents or their families who are naturally worried about any plans there may – or may not be- to close the County’s homes. Sadly this Labour government has cut the money to Leicestershire which has meant that the Council is having to look carefully at its capital and revenue spending but I am sure that Council Leader David Parsons and his cabinet colleagues at County Hall will, unlike he Labour Government, come up with an answer that meets the needs and concerns of my constituents.”
The County Council’s consultation process runs until June 2007.
Mick Connell Esq
The Director
Adult Social Care and Health
Leicestershire County Council
Adult Social Care Service
County Hall
Glenfield
Leicester LE3 8RL
1 May 2007
Dear Mr Connell
I write in response to your invitation to send in views on the consultation document you have published concerning the future of the County Council supported accommodation for older people in Leicestershire and, in particular, in my constituency which has County Council homes in both Market Harborough and Oadby & Wigston. I have also been approached by family members of residents in Lenthall House in Market Harborough and Curtis Weston in Wigston who are naturally worried that any changes that the Council has in mind will adversely affect the welfare of their elderly and in some cases very infirm relations.
From my own point of view I have no issue with the County Council carrying out its duty to provide care for the elderly via the private sector as opposed to in homes wholly owned and operated by the Council but it is my experience, having visited a number of County and privately managed homes for the elderly, that the best private homes are expensive and well beyond the budgets of most families, whereas the County’s homes, although perhaps not as luxurious as some of the private ones, do provide a level of affordable and homely care and are staffed by some dedicated and hardworking staff. It is also my observation that the less expensive private homes do not, for obvious reasons, offer a level of service as good as that provided at Lenthall House and Curtis Weston and I am concerned that the residents of your two homes in my constituency may, for financial reasons, have to move to the less good private homes.
My constituents with parents, for example, with dementia are worried that if their homes are closed they will be placed in another home which they will not be able to cope with, despite the new home being staffed, no doubt, by kind and well-meaning people. I understand the financial constraints under which this Government has placed the County Council but I wonder, if homes have to be closed or transferred into private management, whether it would be possible to provide a long notice period to enable those currently living in my two constituency homes to live out their natural lives untroubled by any upheaval and that anyone intending to move into them in the medium term future could make alternative plans. Not all elderly people are or will be able to live on their own and although visiting care staff are sometimes the answer and allow independence to continue, for some residential accommodation is the only possibility.
Yours sincerely
Edward Garnier
