MPs denounce care home closure plan

Lancashire Council should withdraw its
proposals to cut the number of its care homes from 48 to 13, MPs
urged last week.

The House of Commons debate coincided with
calls by Lancashire Care Association for government to send in a
management team to take over the council’s social services
department because it had “failed to address the government’s
directions with regard to care of the elderly and a citizen’s right
to choose”.

The council has claimed that it needs to
reduce the number of homes because it will cost £14.5m to
upgrade them to meet new care standards (News, page 8, 21
February). Instead £9m is to be spent refurbishing 13 homes on
their sites, which will provide 572 places, less than half the
1,200 currently provided.

Local MPs denounced the council’s claims and
said the £14.5m cost was “a bogus figure”.