Pressure mounting on Kirklees Council to scrap care home closure plans

Claremont House, in Heckmondwike, and Castle Grange, in Newsome, are the two care homes the council has earmarked for closure as it looks to make a £47m saving in the current financial year. The plans are currently going through public consultation and cabinet will make a final decision on the future of the sites early next year.

A full council meeting on December 13 saw Donna Mallinson, whose mother lives at Claremont House, address the council regarding a petition she had created to save the home, which has now amassed 4,713 signatures. The council was then invited to debate the matter.

Ms Mallinson told the meeting: “Every single one of the residents are cared for and loved as they should be and are living out their final years in a loving, happy and stable environment. And we families all have the peace of mind that this is exactly the case.

“Kirklees’ proposal to close these homes is flawed, has inaccuracies and fails to report on the reality of what would happen to these vulnerable and poorly residents if they choose to close the home and force them to live somewhere else.”

She said the only option for families would be to move their loved ones to private sector care homes. Kirklees Council was said to have provided details of six private homes that are aesthetically comparable to Claremont House but Ms Mallinson said that insufficient detail was provided on the quality of care or the costs involved.

However, she told the meeting many families, including her own, had witnessed the “maltreatment” of their loved ones in private sector care settings previously.

When it comes to costs, she said the weekly costs for a self-funding resident would rise by between £250 and £472 in the private sector homes. She also said families of local authority funded residents would be required to top up fees by at least £100 per week.

Ms Mallinson continued: “How can Kirklees force self-funding residents to have to pay more and even get inferior care and how can they expect a family member to have to find that amount of money, again, for inferior care?

“In fact, only one of these six homes claims that it can care for residents with advanced dementia. The other five don’t and have said depending on what behaviours present, the resident would probably need to move again.”

Cabinet member for adult social care, Coun Jackie Ramsay, said in response: “As families, you are rightly concerned about the implications for your family members. As a Cabinet member, I’m not only concerned about that, I’m also trying to balance that with the social care outcomes for everybody in Kirklees and also of the other services that we’ve got that the council needs to deliver for our residents.

“The reality is that there are some areas of provision where the council needs to play a greater role and other areas where there are already other organisations providing that sort of care and given all the pressures on social care at the moment, and on the council as a whole, not just financial, the council needs to focus on the areas where we have the greatest need.

“As the residential care sector has stabilised and recovered following the pandemic, pressures on social care have grown. Long-term residential care is an area that the council feels it should not be focusing time and money on at this time and instead using some of that time and money in areas where the council will have a clearer role, that’s what the consultation is about.”

Leader of the Conservative group, Coun David Hall, expressed concern that the previous administration had ‘taken their eye off the ball’ when it came to running the facilities. He told the meeting that he was convinced a solution could be found to keep the residents in their current homes through talks between the council and the private sector.

He added: “It’s a shame really that the council hasn’t taken the steps before now to try and get this sorted because I think to put the families and the residents of the homes under all this pressure might have been avoided if the work had been done a little bit sooner.”

Coun Paola Davies told the meeting her mother is currently in a Kirklees care home, suffering from dementia. She said of residents potentially having to leave their homes: “That step change in routine and taking residents away from their familiar face, their familiar situation leaves a massive deterioration in their dementia.

“It takes that person further away from their people, from their families and they never come back from that. However sensitively you look at relocating somebody, however lovely the private care home is – my mum’s in a private care home, they’re not all dreadful – but they never come back from that.”

Leader of the Green group, Coun Andrew Cooper, whose ward contains Castle Grange care home, drew parallels between the situations at the two sites and what residents and families were going through. Coun Cooper said the council had been put in this position due to the way local government is financed but urged the council to find another way to save the homes, echoing the words of campaigners.

He highlighted the level of praise the care received across the two sites and said the council should be celebrating this, rather than making cuts.