On Friday I went to the public meeting at the threatened Lehmann House in Wickham Market. Here the portfolio holder for Adult and Community Services, Cllr Noble, plus officers gave a presentation explaining why the council were making big changes – including almost certain closure – to this valued local resource.
Need I mention that these changes form yet another wobbly plank in the Heath Robinson contraption that is Suffolk County Council’s NSD (New Strategic Direction)?
Just to remind you , Lehmann House offers 38 places (28 for older people with special needs because of dementia, two of which are respite places to give carers a rest, plus 10 places for permanent care to frail older people). It has a lovely kindly atmosphere, home cooking that the residents can’t praise highly enough and is deeply deeply valued by the residents and their relatives and carers. There are generally several people from Woodbridge in Lehmann House at any given time..
The public who filled the room – mainly carers, residents and relatives – listened in disbelief as the administration urged them to ” have their say on the future of Suffolk County Council’s residential care homes.”
Hardly much of a say, as one person pointed out, when there are only three options and none of them is keeping things as they are.
“People can’t complete your online consultation unless they pick one of your three options. What if I don’t want one of those options? I can only continue to the next page if I agree with you,” said one.
In fact so many people made so much fuss about this particular point that they extorted a promise from those in charge to change the online questions and allow people to disagree with the options SCC is offering. Lehmann House – 1: SCC – 0.
Oh – let me remind you of the options on offer:
- Close the homes and commission alternative services from the independent sector
- Sell all of the homes as going concerns
- Close a number of homes and transfer the remaining ones to the independent sector.
In addition to Lehmann house, the other homes tipped for closure are Ixworth Court in Ixworth,The Dell in Beccles, Wade House in Stowmarket, Davers Court in Bury St. Edmunds, and Paddock House in Eye
But why does Suffolk County Council provide no option to keep things as they are? The head of the council adult care department says “I haven’t the money to keep care homes running.” End of story. No figures are given – here or elsewhere – to back up this bold assertion. No acknowledgement that in fact it isn’t his money, but Suffolk residents’ money. No suggestion whatsoever that Suffolk residents should be accorded the respect of being in on the decision-making rather than consulted after the event!
The administration added that Lehmann house will have to close anyway sooner or later because ‘not all the rooms have en suite facilities and the next generation of consumers will want them‘ . How this ties in with their other assertion that there will be so many old people in Suffolk twenty years time that we won’t be able to look after them all I am not sure. (If they thought about it, maybe people might prefer a care home place without en suite rather than no care home place at all. And maybe people would prefer to live in the centre of a small town within easy reach of shops and sociability with easy access for relatives by foot, and bus as well as car.These questions are not included on the consultation questionnaire)
As one parent said “I am 91 years old. My daughter is 70. If she doesn’t have a place here, how can I look after her?”
Heartrending.
Besides which, as the entire room said loudly , what does twenty years on have to do with the price of fish? what interest do these particular patients, carers and other family have in talk of alternatives to care, putting more money into supporting people in their own homes, community initiatives?
“All the people here have no alternatives. They have been in their own homes. That time is now over. What does it matter to themwhat other people do in 20 years time? We want to know what’s happening to this home now…
Is there any chance we can keep it open?”
And thats where life gets interesting.
Whilst no-one would confirm that Lehmann House would close, the answers given suggested that the staff and residents of Lehmann House hadn’t a chance of taking over the premises at a peppercorn rent (as someone suggested) because its not only that care homes are too expensive to run. They are also too valuable. SCC wants to close the six homes so they can sell them, leaving the money (presumably) to be put into funding the transfer of the other homes to the independent sector. This would appear to give them two bites at the same cherry of savings – indeed, for all I know, might turn rather a neat profit on the closing of places such as Lehmann. A quick buck – but at what cost?
In which case the closure of this treasured home may depend less on intrinsic factors and more on its value to a speculator. After all, as I said, Lehmann House IS in the centre of a small town within easy reach of shops and sociability by foot, and bus as well as by car..
So the jury is technically out. Technically.
I’ll put my money on Option 3 being the one that mysteriously is the peoples’ choice at the end of this figleaf of a consultation.
This is a help in getting more signatures on the Focus petition. Have already got quite a few from my Martlesham Leisure Group and the Woodbridge Cruising Club.
Think about it, whilst everyone is focusing on the political ‘in-fighting’ the only people with anything to gain, are the supposed ’employees’ of the electorate, in other words the Local Government senior executives, with ‘job creation’ ‘job security’ and an ever increasing extortionate salary bill.
This is hardly rocket science, even today. Charles Dickens was talking about cutting your cloth in relation to your income in Pickwick Papers over 100 years ago!
Local Government salaries, by necessity, have to come out of the same pot from which the service provision funds are sourced.
To put this in context, if the annual executive salaries (Portfolio Managers, Directors and Chief Executives only) for Suffolk is around £6,750,000 and rising, they are bound to want divestiment, in order to protect their well paid, safe, secure, jobs, pensions, perks etc; at the same time as avoiding due responsibility for problems with future ‘economies of service provision’
The money to pay for all of this comes from Council Tax etc; or should I say ‘the people’ plus a diminishing amount from the cash strapped government, it is SCC Officers who have to be held to account. This should not be manouvered into an emotive, political row over homes for the elderly, but stay as a question over gross mismanagement and accountability!
@ Kate Burt: Dismissing criticism of our ruling SCC Cabinet as ‘political in-fighting’ shows a complete misunderstanding of the way a council runs, although I totally agree that there are some scandalously high salaries amongst top SCC officers. For example, the pay bill for Suffolk County’s top managers has almost tripled to £16m in the last 5 years – in other words – during the current Conservative administration. We need to point this out.
And viewing the Cabinet as ‘victims’ of the shenanigans of greedy officers is also letting the Tory administration off the responsibility they bear – for example – for the high salaries of senior officers and their own poor financial decision-making. It is pretty much like saying that the Iraqi war was caused by the civil service rather than by undemocratic decision-making by Blair, Brown, Straw et al!
(If the Tory administration are in actuality such wets and weeds as to be trampled over by the very people they have themselves appointed at salaries, terms and conditions they have themselves decided, then they are clearly not fit to run the county.)
I will not go into the shocking way Suffolk’s finances have been ‘spun’ in all this, as I think that deserves a post all of its own, but the bottom line re Lehmann House and its fellow homes under threat is that the residents and families of care homes have a right to know that their placements are in danger.
Indeed they should have a right to be able to influence policy rather than to be given it as a fait accompli.
To be given it as a fait accompli by means of a power-point presentation that concentrates heavily on ‘alternatives’ to residential care some years in the future was not kind – nor helpful – at all.
Its really no wonder that the Portfolio-holder and his officers met with such a rocky reception!
Whatever savings are necessary, they should not affect the elderly and vulnerable in homes such as Lehmann House. The people there should be left in peace and their accommodation funded by the County Council as now. The number of elderly folk will increase still further in the future. They have funded, through taxes, the care they deserve now.
I’m very glad that the County Council – officers and elected representatives – had a bit of a wake-up call when they finally decided that they would have to look like they were taking account of the opinions of the people of Suffolk. We elect the councillors, then they tell the council officers how to manage the county (that’s right isn’t it?). So how does the will of the people got so lost between the local elections and Friday’s meeting at Lehmann House?
I was at the meeting and what I found interesting was the Supposed running costs of the 16 care homes £16 million pounds a year.
Once again the council employees and those who have been elected by us to support the public views are working for the accountants and only one thing they care for is securing their jobs, the portfolio holders their expenses, and somewhere far far down the line are those people who are enjoying their lives being cared for in these homes.
They kept telling us at this “””Consultation””” that there were several places in the private sector waiting for these 100 / 200 residents in these 6 care homes they may close!! My wife and I tried for 6 weeks trying to find somewhere for my Father in Law, we were getting push by the hospital as he was bed blocking, and listening to radio Suffolk the other morning there re still several people waiting for their care plans and homes to accommodate them but are again bed blocking because they can not find places for them. BUT they tried to convince us there were all these spaces!! Does anyone know of places within easy reach like Lehmann house is??
This home should be a flag ship for SCC on how a care home should be run, the staff are brilliant, my father has never been so happy since he lost his wife 6 years ago,
We have to continue to fight this cause and maybe get a group together to see if we can put some sort of business plan together?? any suggestions?
One further point when I ask about the additional funding the government were putting in care, this was passed over stating he had been to a meeting in London about this!! next question? let me get back to the power point where this will all be explained to us.
Lets not let them just fob us off.
Tony,I have so much sympathy with what you are saying here. And you’ve hit another nail on the head. Maybe there may be a placement for your father somewhere in the county, but how could it be a replacement for the closeness and convenience of Lehmann house, where relatives and friends can pop in, and which feels so very local and friendly?
You are right to claim “This home should be a flag ship for SCC on how a care home should be run, the staff are brilliant, my father has never been so happy since he lost his wife 6 years ago.”
Before fighting this decision, the first step is to try and persuade the SCC administration that they are making a terribly bad mistake that will rebound on them (as indeed it will).
Have you come across our leaflet with the petition yet? Its got lots of press headlines on the front and an ostrich on the back under the headline ‘Don’t bury your head in the sand – act NOW!’
You can sign a copy in the Wickham Market post office, I believe, if one hasn’t yet come through your door. We are trying to get as many signatures to the petition as possible to deliver to the Administration at the next full council day, 2 December. If you have got one, try and collect as many signatures from Suffolk residents as possible – relatives, friends, neighbours, colleagues. It doesn’t matter about age or background. These changes will affect us all.
If we haven’t managed to reach you, you can sign it online http://savesuffolkservices.blogspot.com/
or if you want to download it to collect further paper signatures: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/56654857/Save-Suffolk-Services-petition
Just remember to return it by the 26th November.
Remember, your voice can be heard!
If this doesn’t work, you may like to contact district councillor Bryan Hall
Email: bryan.hall@suffolkcoastal.gov.uk
who lives in Wickham market and who will be able to give you a steer as to what action is planned locally to save lehmann House