At yesterday's Cabinet meeting questions put by Cllr Barry Lewis on behalf of the Conservative Group on the closure of Southlands Care Home exposed failings by Derbyshire County Council to deliver a package of Extra Care to Derbyshire’s elderly residents. Whilst the Conservatives were in administration a cutting edge £200million investment package was developed to deliver residential, and sheltered housing to meet growing need well into the 21st century. Up to £80million of that was to be externally funded by housing providers such as Housing 21, and other developers.
The overarching principle was to provide high quality care facilities that not only met future need but ensured that there was a range of provision to meet a broad range of needs, such as enabling couples to stay together and have their own front door. Other options allowed people to purchase or rent apartments and health and social care providers to meet residential care needs, including for specialist dementia care.
Cllr Major, Shadow Cabinet Member for Adult Care said,
“Yesterday Cllr Claire Neil, Cabinet member for Adult Care denied she was responsible for the collapse of Extra Care citing ‘market failures’ that meant Housing 21 was not able to raise the necessary loan capital to deliver these key projects.
What she is making light of however, is that it was her dithering and reluctance to commit to this project that caused the ‘market' problem. We believe it was Labour’s intention to be quietly obstructive and to allow this project to flounder and this in turn created uncertainty and that meant lenders developed cold feet and Housing 21 had to back away. This reluctance was underpinned by Labour’s clearly stated opposition to the project prior to the 2013 elections.
They clearly don’t have a clue what they are doing next to improve matters for Derbyshire’s elderly - yesterday Cllr Neil stated she couldn't tell us how many more homes would close during Labour’s administration. Nor could she tells us how many empty beds this authority is paying for in our decaying care homes whilst they continue to dither.”
Council overspending contributed to a raid of nearly £12million pounds on the reserves, with a £15million overspend on Adult Care during this administration contributing to that.
Cllr Mike Longden commented,
“This raid on the reserve equates to more than a third of the £29million this authority needed to save this year. This level of overspend and dipping into the reserve is unsustainable. Labour needs a solution to address the growing demographic pressure of an ageing population or face a real crisis that no one can bail them out from."
Cllr Lewis, Conservative Leader added,
“So when Labour says it wants to stimulate the economy and that it cares about our ageing population I would suggest that the evidence tells us the opposite.”
They want a state delivered old age care in crumbling care homes and an economy that consumes tax payers money propping up those buildings.
This is an administration in chaos over Adult Care - staring into a chasm with no plan and no idea what to do next.”