Care homes saved after residents’ campaign

Nicholson House, which specialises in the care of people with Alzheimer’s and dementia will be saved, although two other residential homes, Alderson Resource Centre and Salingar House, will close.

Protests over changes to day care services, which will see many adults with learning disabilities forced to travel far greater distances to fewer centres, have also convinced the Liberal Democrat administration to maintain a service in East Hull, reinvesting £100,000. However the council is still looking to save £1.584m against the original saving of £1.684m.

While relatives, who were out at the weekend leafleting in council leader Carl Minns’s ward, were delighted with the U-turn, they pledged to carry on campaigning against the closure of the two other two homes, and will stand hand in a 1,500-name petition this week.

Jenny Sergeant, whose mother Dorothy, 93, lives at Nicholson House said: “I am obviously delighted for Nicholson, my mum and the staff and all the other people but I am really devastated for the people in Alderson and Salingar and what’s going to happen to them.

“I’d like to get a commitment from Coun Minns that he’s not going to just keep it open this year.”

Coun Minns, Hull Council leader, said Nicholson House campaigners had made “persuasive arguments” for keeping it open. Alderson House would become a respite centre for short-stay cases.

Many relatives expressed concern about the quality of private care, compared to that provided by the council but Coun Minns said: “People have a bad experience of the NHS – we don’t say the NHS as a whole is rubbish.

“There are some absolutely first rate care private homes in this city.”

He said he’d listened to families with relatives with learning difficulties and they were putting “money back into the budget to design a service round east Hull.”