More than 2,500 sign petition to save Wolverhampton care homes
More than 2,500 people have signed a petition to save two city care homes facing closure.
The petition, set up by Unison, is expected to be handed to Wolverhampton council.
The number of signatures was revealed at the first public meeting held at the Civic Centre to discuss the future of two care homes and two resource centres in the city, with proposals to close Merry Hill House in Langley Road, Merry Hill, and Nelson Mandela House in Whitburn Close, Pendeford, and have their services picked up by outside providers.
Day-care services at Woden Resource Centre in Wednesfield will also be lost under the plans to save the local authority £2.6 million. The services will be moved to the council's Bradley Resource Centre.
During the consultation event, attended by nine people and run by head of commissioning Paul Smith, there were calls for councillors to front up and attend the discussions, as none of the city's 60 councillors were at the meeting.
Workers from the care homes, who did not wish to be named, said they had been told by the council they could no longer display the petitions to keep the homes open.
Mr Smith said he was unaware of this happening, and would investigate immediately.
Speaking at the meeting David Hellyar, a director at Healthwatch who stressed he was speaking in his own personal capacity, said plans would make life harder for the city's carers.
Mr Hellyar said: "For carers respite care is the thing that keeps them going.
"It is an opportunity to not have that daily burden, because that's what that is, and I am very, very concerned that for a lot of people – and we are only talking about care of the elderly – for a lot of people you are going to make life more difficult."
Mr Smith assured him under the new proposals the volume of respite care will be the same, and said the costs of the service were not yet known as no decision about providers had been made.
Both care homes respite services are currently underutilised, Mr Smith said, and with fixed costs such as staffing, the cost for respite care was 'quite expensive' in contrast to what could be achieved by the private sector.
When Mr Hellyar suggested keeping one service open, reducing costs overall and filling beds in one home, Mr Smith said: "Respite services are very underutilised at this point in time and those services are quite difficult in terms of costs for the council."
At the moment, Merry Hill House in Langley Road, Merry Hill, and Nelson Mandela House in Whitburn Close, Pendeford, have 10 long-term residents but do also accommodate short respite stays. At capacity, the homes could look after 72 people.
Another man who spoke at the meeting said it was the council's own policies that resulted in the homes being underutilised, and cited a recent decision by a council in Cambridgeshire to go back to running its own homes, at a lower cost than external providers.
Consultation closes on October 26, and there are three more public meetings at the civic centre in committee room three: October 6 at 2pm, October 13 at 5.30pm, and October 20 at 7pm.
People can also contact Rose Powell on 01902 555494 or rose.powell@wolverhampton.gov.uk.
