Council prepares for care shake-up

York Council announced yesterday that it had started the bid to glean people’s views on the radical shake-up to cope with the soaring demand for health services for the elderly.

The council agreed last month to conduct a city-wide review of its nine residential care homes amid predictions that the number of people aged over 65 is expected to increase by nearly a quarter in less than a decade.

The public consultation is being carried out from now until mid-October and will see council officials write to care home residents and their families as well as the authority’s own workers and others in the care professions.

Public meetings are also being organised with the first due to be staged at the Gateway Centre in Acomb on September 1 between 7pm and 8.30pm.

Displays about the consultation are also being put in supermarkets as the council looks to reach as wide a section of residents as possible.

A postal survey will be sent out to a sample selection of 2,600 pensioners and an on-line survey will be available on the council’s website.

The feedback from the three-month consultation will be collated and will then form part of a report that is due to be considered by members of the council’s cabinet on November 1.

A five-year vision is being drawn up to reduce the number of hospital and care home admissions, representing the biggest changes since the existing facilities were built in the 1960s and 1970s.

As life expectancy has increased and people are able to stay at home longer, those admitted to residential care are often more physically frail.

The proposed new structure could see as many as 180 high dependency beds and 20 respite beds provided to help cope with the need for more specialist care.