Push for extra spending in day care centres

Councillor Dale Mulgrew

Proposals have been put put forward for a dramatic increase in investment to elderly day care provision. The proposals will see two of the boroughs' older persons day care centres - Springhill of Rochdale and Saxonside of Middleton - receive a share of £196,000 in added investment, which will also provide ten extra jobs for carers. In addition, two more older persons day centres will also be built for the borough.

There are already have two exisitng day care centres in Rochdale and Middleton at the Ronald Gorton Centre and the Woodclough Centre respectively. The £196,000 investment proposal is for two more Council facilities at Springhill and Saxonside that possess day care wings, but which have never been fully utilised for such a purpose and the plans are to open them to increase the provision of day care in the Borough.

Portfolio holder for Health and Social Care, Councillor Dale Mulgrew said: "The standard of care that our elderly residents receive is an issue of high importance to us. The central premise to our proposal is that in our Borough, we only have two day care centres that currently provide the day care service that many older people rely on. After talking to and working with both Age Concern and the Mental Health Trust, we were in agreement that the two centres had never really been utilised sufficiently for this use, mainly due to the lack of resources deployed.

"The £196,000 will be used to staff both Saxonside and Springhill which will increase the level of provision for older persons with mental health needs, specifically with the condition of dementia. Although Saxonside is a residential home for intermediate care and is slightly different to the Springhill site, we would wish that in the future this investment will evolve Saxonside to allow for visiting by external service users, as well as for people who stay internally for intermediate care. We will also be using the money to build two brand new facilities for the older residents of our borough."

Portfolio Holder for Older People, Councillor Pauline Maguire said: "The budget proposal that we have put forward clearly shows that this Lib Dem run Council always puts the well being of our older residents first. The investment is expected to add a further 20 places per day for residents at Springhill and eight places per day at Saxonside. It will therefore open up more job opportunities for carers or homecare staff to transfer from their current jobs into a new role. This is a fantastic opportunity to give our older residents the day care service they deserve and I am sure that people across our borough would welcome this investment."