Tory spin hides real story

Whenever the Tories whip up a head of steam on a non-issue you know they are trying to conceal a real story or when something going on behind the scenes.

The fact we got so much of it today suggests both. A concealment of the real story and something behind the scenes.

The suggestion that anyone wants to flog off Rochester Airport or a random golf club on the Peninsula is absolute rubbish. The point made today was clear; instead of focusing on non-issues the Council should be focused on the matter at hand; the care homes closures.

The fact the Tories tried to spin a story on safeguarding Council assets on the same day as they privatised three cares homes is about as brazen as you get.

This is three publicly owned care homes, which care for hundreds of residents, privatised after a consultation which was quite frankly an utter shambles. And the Tories then complain about a sell-off of private land that happened when I was a mere teenager, from 1997-2002.

Clutching at the proverbial straw

Instead today we witnessed the shameful positioning of Tories trying to change the story.

The story today is simple; the Tories agreed after 8,000 signatures and significant public anger across the entire towns to privatise our last remaining care homes.

The consultation behind these closures was a sham; pre-budgeted in outcome and without considering all the options on partnership models it was all but decided before it even started. The fact it was in the budget for this year says everything about the intent of the Tories.

The big question I posed in the winter was why the Council had not considered social partnerships like the Norse Group. Social partnerships which are owned by and established limited companies in the ownership of the public sector. I was given short shrift but the question remained on my mind.

It is now interesting that Medway Community Healthcare - a NHS sponsered social partnership - is now putting an interested enquiry into the Balfour Centre.

My question then and it is now; why has it taken this long for a social-partnership to be looked at as a viable alternative to pure privatisation? Why was this not considered from the outset?

In addition, have significant questions about the timing of this bid. Why has it taken so long - indeed an 11th hour intervention - for MCH to submit a bid?

The timing is very interesting; whether any Council officers had previous conversations on an MCH bid prior to a formal application would be of public interest. It is very likely that conversations must have been had for them to make a business case for the service.

The Tories today have been remarkably loud; they are only ever thus when there is internal instability. I suspect that the decision to privatise homes must have weighed heavily on the more decent of back-benchers.

Whether there was a wobble in the ranks remains a mystery, but them jumping at Cllr Maple today suggests to me there was and whats more it was serious.

A reshuffle of Cllr Brake may be on the cards...

There remain significant questions about the timing and nature of the new bid for the Balfour Centre but let us not distracted; the last of our public care homes were sold off to the highest bidder today

Danger of Care Home Privitisation

Letter sent to press below by Cllr Teresa Murray

Dear Sir,

The concerns raised in the Messenger article about Friston House and Winchester house care homes provide us with a timely reminder about the dangers posed by the Medway Council Cabinet's proposals, currently out for public consultation, to privatise Robert Bean Lodge, Nelson Court and Platters Farm. These popular and high quality homes are owned by the council and while this is the case it's much easier for the standards of care they provide to be monitored.

As your article shows even though private homes are subject to inspection by the Care Standards Commision, many more of them fall below acceptable practice when compared to those in the public sector. This is because the only other monitoring private homes have is that by relatives of users and annual visits from the Council who fund places in the private sector too. As accountability in the private sector is less regulated many private homes refuse potential clients and their families the right to drop in unplanned when trying to choose a home.

In the course of the consultaion I have heard relatives say that that they were even refused visits to see their loved ones already in private homes, if they didn't call first to say they were coming. Those who work at private homes are just as kind and caring as those who work in our council homes but they are paid less and there are fewer of them, reducing the time they can spend with those they look after. This results in higher hospital admissions where the neglect resulting from lack of time causes more presssure sores and infections. The consultation meetings have been well attended and I have now lost count of the numbers of people at the meetings or who have contacted me separately ,who tell frightening and moving stories about the way their loved ones ,now comfortable in our council homes, have been treated in the private sector.

Their stories include poor hygeine,the eviction of patients whose condition worsens, bad food and lack of feeding, regimes with few meaningful activities for residents and constant staff turnover. Privatising these much loved homes in Medway will leave the council prey to the private sector, vulnerable to uncontrolled pricing of care and weakened in terms of being able to uphold a gold standard or secure a safe place when things in the private sector go wrong.

Even the Parliamentary Public Accounts committee has recently issued a report saying that it's hard for councils to control standards of care in the private sector and intend to issue guidelines for tightening things up. I hope that the Conservative Cabinet of Medway council will listen carefully on February 14th to what the consultation has told us all and keep the homes in public ownership. Why let a good thing go when we could build on our success?

Privatising the homes is short sighted and the savings resulting from doing so are anyway very unclear, our older people have worked for all of us, they deserve the very best we can provide.

Cllr Teresa Murray

Labour spokesperson on Medway council, Health and Social care.

Vox-Pop on Care Homes

MPs back Care Home cuts

Well it is not as if this blog has not given enough time for our local MPs to make it clear where they stand on the privitisation of Nelson Court, Platters Farm or Robert Bean and the closure of the Balfour Centre.

Our MPs have failed to make any public statement that I can find online about whether they back the cuts to Care Homes or not.

Now it has been revealed of sorts. Mark Reckless, Tracey Crouch and Rehman Chisthi back the closure and privitisation of these homes not because they are right, but because they are being led by Conservatives.

It is clear that the Conservative Council has pre-budgeted the closures and privatisation and it is also clear they have not, or at least publicly, considered the not-for-profit limited company or partnership model which is followed elsewhere in the country. Lastly, it is disengenuous to claim closures on the back of statistics which they themselves have manipulated on thresholds which have been changed to reduce numbers.

I can therefore cut and paste the comment from the Nelson Court Facebook page from Maureen Ruparel who has been organising the anti-closure campaign after I put in a request to find out the MPs position on the closure.

Tracey Crouch MP definately backs the closures

Some people cant understand why I have been quite so tenacious (or rude) in pushing for a response. A recent debate with local blogger Chris Sams, explained the logic of why I made a request, a quite assertive one, that they make a public statement on their position.

Members' of Parliament are in the end there to represent the people they serve and are beholden to them to make representations to government agencies, including the Council.

I requested that they make clear in public, to stop any confusion and allow their constituents to see a clear position, how they would react and respond to the consultation by the Conservatives on the Council to cut care services for the most vulnerable.

It is totally reasonable request to make; most MPs would have said that they were backing or not backing it and a link to a reason why. Given the media and press coverage, and ongoing debate and consultation, you would think that not only would a public position be sensible, but actually there would be an expectation of MPs to respond

I got a swift slap down for my enquiries.

The public really do deserve a better.

It is particularly eye-brow raising because meanwhile some of our MPs have rightly supported a cross-party Parliamentary Group to discuss care in the future; and yet in the same breath Tory Councillors ignore local Labour Party suggestions for a limited partnership under local authority control. Listening but only when told. Saying one thing and doing another.

Public and the residents deserve to know where our representatives stand so make it clear when requested.

Dementia Statistics

Demographic changes to dementia

Very interested to note a number of press reports on Dementia over the last couple of days.

The Conservatives in Medway are claiming that demographic pressures are downward and that a reduction in numbers are causing services to be un-used.

Of course this is not accurate with an increasing requirement in future years which is why closing and privatising centres on the back of downward pressures on 'Council' statistics is baseless and actually concerning.

Incidentally we saw the same Tory-trick on statistics to close Primary Schools which led the School's Adjudicator over-turning the administrations judgement.

We all know the Medway Conservatives changed the eligibility criteria in 2008 making those previously eligible to use Nelson Court, Robert Bean, Platters Farm and Balfour inelgibile. We all know that they have already budgeted for care home closures before the consultation had even started in an arrogant act of subverting the consultation exercise itself.

Councillor Jarrett is now taking the lead after the Portfolio holder, David Brake, made quite inaccurate remarks to Cabinet on redundancies only a few weeks ago.

In his piece to the Messenger:

"The Balfour Centre provides day care, but since the introduction of personalized budgets by the last Labour government there is more choice available. Now increasing numbers of people are taking the payments to which they are entitled and using to buy a host of different services"

No one opposes the move towards 'personalised budgets' for those who are capable of managing their own budgets. However, in cases of hightened dementia individuals are unable to manage personal budgets and therefore the Council does take responsibility.

In addition, Councillor Jarrett has deliberely ignored the fact his administration fiddled the eligibility criteria in 2008. Once again paiting a woefully inaccurate position of the reasons why numbers are being reduced. Incidentally the centre being proposed for closure is at 70-80% of capacity which favours well with other private-sector providers; so that argument is also utterly without logic.

"All provide a good standard of care, but at more than twice the cost to be found in other parts of the care homes market in Medway they no longer represent good value for money"

Taking into account that Jarrett has mis-spent on countless capital programmes and on revenue budgets to the tune of £7.9m; the man has lost grip of the Council spending talking about value for money has to make you cry.

This is a false argument because the centres being closed & privatised deal with very specialist cases and can not be 'averaged' out across other care homes who may have individuals with little help or need. In addition, the option to create a social partnership with other local authorities could reduce costs by creating back office synergies - this option has been totally ignored by the Conservatives who favour a wholly private sector option - which indicently for high-need dementia care could be as expensive in some cases.

"Medway will not be closing any of the three homes"

The fact is he can not guarantee that once these homes transfer to private ownership that they will not close; as we saw with Shaw's Wood in Strood, the Tories make grand statements only to be found inaccurate twelve months later.

Time and time again the Tories paint a dishonest picture of the truth.

Financial times are tight but as a Society is simply a case of basic moral right that we care for our most vulnerable in the best way possible.

If we cut the stupid expenditures on Tory pet-programmes we would not be in such a difficult spot and that is the fault of the Cameron Conservatives; who are self-evidently not compassionate

Care Home Campaign

Despite all the national news about Europe my focus for the last week has been closer to home; namely the campaign to safeguard our Care Home Services in Medway from an overt Tory privatisation exercise.

This issue matters to me. Firstly, It does strike personally to me as my grandma had to be looked after in the Care Home system and I can remember at the time the spectrum of quality of care. Without exception the quality of care in the public sector was better; though that of course from my second-hand experience.

Secondly, one of the homes being propsed for closure, Nelson Court sits within Luton & Wayfield. I can not express how much I respect the staff of Nelson Court and the work that they do with some of the most vulnerable adults. If the same is translated across Platters Farm, Robert Bean and Balfour then we truly have some tremendous staff.

Which is the reason I am angry that our Members of Parliament have shown no respect on this issue to the families, residents or service users.

I asked both Tracey Crouch MP and Mark Reckless MP a very simple question online; whether they support the Medway Conservative move to close and privatise these services.

Instead of giving me, and the general public a straight answer, we have been met with the proverbial cold-shoulder. Apparently, it isnt appropriate to ask MPs these type of questions on twitter!

Fine; if there is a more nuanced answer; a more complicated answer, then state it online.

Simply fobbing off a legitimate question like this is really unusual behaviour from public representatives.

Moving onto the Health and Adult Social Care meeting last week.

Medway Labour called in the decision by the Conservatives last week and has been working with partners to oppose the cuts to these care homes. Labour organized an emergency public at the Corn Exchange in Rochester with over 60 attendees and called-in the Conservative decision on Thursday 8th December for scrutiny at a meeting with over 100 residents.

Labour raised several concerns about the proposals and the justification for the cuts including why:

• The Conservatives had already budgeted for the privatization and closure of these homes as indicated in the budget appendix, and Q2 quarterly budget monitoring statement. Given this appears in the budget, we believe the Conservatives have already come to a conclusion before the consultation has even begun.

• The Conservatives have deliberately ignored more suitable proposals; including the establishment of a Council controlled limited company which would allow those with personalized budgets access to publicly owned services.

I specifically raised this point after Cllr Vaughan Hewett misunderstood (I dont think it was deliberate, more lack of research) that personalised care budgets could be spent in the public sector if it was within a company owned by the Council.

Some specific examples include the Norse Group which is owned by Norfolk County Council and manages several carehomes under the umbrella Norse Care.

• The Conservatives have not been honest about the numbers using the care home facilities, by not citing the cumulative numbers that attend in some publications.
• In addition, they cite the reduction in numbers as a justifier for reductions but have ignored a probable cause which is the change by Medway Conservatives to eligibility thresholds in 2008 which caused a reduction in accessibility to facilities

It is essential that there is a fair and transparent process for deciding who in a local area should receive social care support funded by central and local government. Until the care and support system is reformed, Councils have been using Fair Access to Care Services (FACS) guidance SCIE has produced Facts about FACS 2010: A guide to Fair Access to Care Services

Medway Conservatives changed the criteria in 2008 removing those with 'moderate' requirement from funding (there are five levels). This has led to a reduction in those eligible for services via Council funding.

It is worth noting that several other Councils; including Kent County Council accept those in care on moderate requirement.

• The Conservatives have totally mismanaged the communications process with reports of gagging staff and communication via the television media unacceptable to service users. In addition they have removed the cost savings of the proposal from any external communication given to stakeholders at these centres

Several speakers from the floor last week lambasted the Conservative authority for how it managed the process. I myself have seen several documents which show that service-users were given less information then 'staff'.

Facts in my mind were deliberately ignored by the Conservatives including the budgetary rationale for the cuts. In a consultation exercise, the facts provided to the public to respond is very important; Tories should not be able to manipulate the facts to come to a pre-planned conclusion.

Despite the waffle and spin from the opposite side; this is not about Labour opposing the move towards personalised care budgets. In many cases we accept that these have been a positive move for many residents.

The issue is about whether all the options have been explored and the manner in which this has been woefully mismanaged by the Conservatives.

The Conservatives have badly managed this process and have not considered all the options. The consultation premise is therefore utterly unacceptable.

We believe the Conservatives are cutting essential care homes and front-line services not to improve services but as a direct result of Tory fiscal incompetence. The Tories are predicted to overspend by £7.9m on capital and revenue budgets this year alone.

It is not surprising that the Tories will save £1m per annum by outsouring residential care to the cheapest provider In addition to this the closure of the Balfour Centre will save a further £200,000 per annum

Perhaps our MPs are shamed by the Conservatives on the Council. I suspect they are instead trying to distance themselves from the actions of their Councillors.

It is time for them to tell us where they stand.

Medway MPs on Care home cuts?

Just returned from a packed hall of 60-70 people on the cuts to Medway care homes which was organised at short notice last week.

We will hopefully get videos up shortly highlighting how our MPs - Mark Reckless and Tracey Crouch - can not just sit on the fence and pretend this issue does not concern them.

Care home and adult social care is arguably the most important local issue facing residents at the present time and will vex the Council for future months.

I have tonight asked both Mark and Tracey on twitter what they think of the cuts.

I hope they will perhaps have opinions on local issues which matter to thousands of residents, vulnerable adults, staff and families

Any delay would show that they are either unclear or are intending to oppose the campaign to safeguard these services from £1m of Medway Council cuts.

Tory cuts to Care Homes

The attempt by Medway Conservatives to try and spin the reasons for Care Home cuts as being somehow beneficial to the elderly is low by even their standards.

The Timetable for cuts is now all but certain:

• 8th December 2011 - Consultation begins with service users until early February
• 26th January 2011 - Health and ASC Overview & Scrutiny Committee debate the paper. Tory-led committee will vote it through.
• 14th February 2011 - Cabinet consider the outcome and will rubber stamp the Tory position; despite objections from stakeholders

We know how Tories treat consultation exercises - Cabinet member Tom Mason made clear over the summer that Consultations would be 'binned' and ignored. Ironically over the Dartford Crossing tolls (which was a u-turn!).

We can all remember the Primary School closures which saw the Tories close good schools on the back of dodgy statistics.

There is a meeting tommorrow night to discuss the closures at the Corn Exchange in Rochester from 6.30-9.00pm.

There are however some simple truths. It is clear that there remain significant numbers of people with physical disabilities and an increasingly ageing and single population and that the reduction in numbers in Balfour, Robert Bean, Platters Farm and Nelson Court is not related to demand which we know is present.

We know that the number of elderly people is increasing as a result of demographics, but is instead about the erosion of eligibility.

The Tory spin, and it is spin, is that this is all about improving customer choice. It is total fiction.

The Council is facing unprecendented cuts from central government to the tune of 28% over four years. This is a no mean endeavour in good times but add in the fiscal incompetence of Councillor Jarrett and the Tory mugs who run the Council, we also have a current budget shortfall of £5.1m on revenue budgets and £2.8m on capital spend.

The Tories have utterly mismanaged the Council books and as result we are witnessing these cuts.

From my estimates and budget analysis the 'outsourcing' of residential care services will deliver 'efficiencies' (or service degredation) to the tune of £1m per annum.

Reduction in numbers?

I know several consituents who were prevously eligible to attend the centre who were rejected because they became ineligible. The fact is we know the Tories need to make up the budget shortfall. We know they have cut services and rejecting users would be a reason.

The Tories this blog suspects and alleges have made it increasingly hard for members of the public to use the facility so reducing attending numbers to the point it could justify closure.

And what is to happen to the Balfour specialist units?

The Balfour site is occupied by several specialist units including the Enhanced Care Unit. If this service is cut it may have to be relocated; is the service guaranteed?

And redundancies?

Councillor Brake has made clear there will be no redundancies. This is inappropriate to promise something they cant deliver.

The Council can certainly minimise redundancies and make the redeployment pool more open but they can not guarantee jobs for staff. Whats more those two Cabinet members should know it; and probably do.

Evidence from Shaw's Wood which was sold off and privatised in 2006/2007 shows there were redundancies.

Tory claim that homes are unsafe or open to 'widespread abuse'?

No one has made any assertion that Nelson Court, Robert Bean, Platters Farm or Balfour are unsafe. The assertion in the cabinet holder's speech is therefore inappropriate and not relevent to the debate.

Incidently the worst cases of recent abuse have been in private care homes so actually nullifying the point.

Southern Cross?

The issue surrounding Southern Cross in the portfolio holders statement is irrelevent. The fact is the uncertainty surrounding the homes was very concerning to Southern Cross residents and the Council had to pay staff members to come up with contingency plans at time and expense.

In addition there were several homes owned by Southern Cross that did have to close. Medway was fortunate in that the landlords could take responsbility.

The government has even made it clear that the Private Equity model used by Southern Cross was unethical.

Sadly our Medway Conservatives think asset stripping and selling things off is morally correct.

Either way; the point is irrelevent to the debate.

Most people of reasoned judgement can see this Conservative exercise for what it is.

The simple fact is that because of Conservative cuts nationally, coupled with fiscal incompetence on the current budget Conservatives have to make cuts and savings. They have identified the most vulnerable adults as a service which can be reduced.

Cutting £1m will reduce the service quality or outcomes for those in care. For Tories to claim otherwise is rubbish.

Tory budget folly driving care cuts

This week will see the call-in for the Care Home closures that the Conservatives have pushed onto residents at Christmas.

The timing of the planned closures and privatisation stinks and warrants further questionning on Thursday this week about the timing and purpose for the cuts.

This blog would contend that the Tories are cutting these services because they are desperate to find savings in the revenue budget which is now £5.1m over budget.

I asked several questions at last weeks Business Support Overview & Scrutiny about the Conservative maladministration over the budget. The Tories are now £5.1m overspent on revenue (departmental) budgets and have overspent by £2.8m on the capital projects (Bus station / Stoke Crossing / Chatham one-way system).

The fact is the adult services budget is a quick-win in fiscal terms for the Tories and this has been identified for some time.

People may also be interested to see the timing of this decision, especially during Christmas. The Conservatives were well aware of the 'savings' that required in Quarter 2; but have left it until now to put out the consultation. I consider that an absolute disgrace to do this over this period... and whats more this would have been planned.

It is also grossly unethical and ill-timed by those who should know better.

This is not about improvement in services to our residents. It is pure and simple about outsourcing care services to deliver savings of £1m per annum at the expense of the most vulnerable.