The outcome of a consultation on the future of Meadow Court nursing home seems like a “done deal” already said councillors at a health scrutiny committee.
The home, in Barley Lane, Goodmayes, provides specialist care for adults with Alzheimer’s and young people with multiple sclerosis.
Redbridge Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has launched a consultation on whether to continue funding it but councillors feel it is already potentially doomed.
The CCG claims that fewer people who need dementia care are choosing to go to Meadow Court, but it has also admitted that it has stopped offering Meadow Court as an option on lists to prospective patients.
Speaking at the meeting at Redbridge Town Hall, High Road, Ilford, Sharon Morrow of Redbridge CCG said it has a block contract with Care UK to run the centre and it is paying for empty beds at a cost of £2.4million per year.
“We have been in negotiation for months and months with Care UK over the contact,” she said.
“The block contract has been running for a number of years, it is a historical arrangement and it would have been better to negotiate a spot contract.”
Ms Morrow said Care UK could not continue the home without the contract and the CCG is “not privy” to what the owners of the building, NELFT, would do with it.”
Susan Winch-Furness, whose husband uses Meadow Court, said the home is far superior to others in the area.
“They (CCG) say they have 17 homes within a four mile radius offering the same dementia care as Meadow Court,” she said
“This is absolutely not true – no other home has such a good ratio of staff to residents and offers anything like the same level of care.”
Councillor Karen Packer said the CCG has “no evidence” that other care homes in the area can give the same care.
She said the consultation “is really nothing”.
Chairman of the committee Councillor Neil Patrick Zammett in his summing up said the situation seems like a done deal.
“We need some further investigation and assurances and we will write directly to the CCG about our concerns.”
Article originally appeared on Ilford Recorder
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