Update on Birmingham City Council's Elderly Persons' Homes and attached Day Centres

The latest edition of 'Improving Care Services for Older Adults' is available below. It contains the latest news on the how people are finding their new accommodation and a summary of the Cabinet decision on the 27 July 2009 following three months of consultation.

The Cabinet decision was approved on Monday 27 July and is ready for implementation on the revised criteria and closure order for phase 2 elderly persons’ homes. See the Cabinet Report and appendices (please click on this link twice to get the correct web page) on Democracy in Birmingham.

We have now opened four new Care Centres and closed 13 out of our 29 elderly persons' care homes and their attached day centres. Over 150 older people have moved to new accommodation and over 90 people have moved to new day services. Some of the feedback we have received is contained in 'Improving Care Services Newsletters Issue 3 and 4 below.

Following extensive consultation in 2005 we published the Older Adults Commissioning Strategy 2005 - 2010. This document showed our commitment to deliver a range of modern high quality services you told us you expected.

In November 2007 the City Council’s Cabinet decided that we had made sufficient progress towards delivering these new high quality services that we should begin to carry out the planned closure of 29 of the city’s elderly person’s homes and attached day centres by 2010.

In March 2009 the agreed plan to close all 29 homes by 2010 was re-affirmed by Cabinet. In the light of the changed economic climate and changes to the way personal care services should be delivered in the future, the decision was made to reconsider the order in which the remaining homes and attached day centres would close.

Between 20 April 2009 and 10 July 2009 we consulted widely on a set of proposed criteria to decide which of the remaining homes should close, before the end of 2010, and those which could remain open for up to five years.

We sent out over 1,800 questionnaires, held staff meetings and conducted drop-in sessions at all care homes and attached day centres in phase 2 of the modernisation program. We heard back from 400 residents, relatives and staff. Their contributions have been included in the recommendations made in a report to Cabinet, who met on 27 July 2009.

Cabinet decided that we should proceed with closing the remaining Elderly Persons’ Homes and attached Day Centres and that the closures would be co-ordinated with the availability of appropriate alternative services. These include a range of new high quality residential care homes and Extra Care housing which are described in more detail in newsletter 4 below.

Assessment and Resettlement

In order to achieve the best possible outcomes for all of the service users affected by the modernisation of services for older people we have set up a dedicated Assessment and Resettlement Team. The methods and timescales we are following to make sure that the needs of our residents, service users, their families and carers are met are described within the two attached documents at the bottom of this page. The Residential Care Homes Methodology describes in detail the way we are carrying out the assessment and resettlement of our residents during the closure of our first 13 residential care homes. The Day Services Methodology describes in detail the way we are carrying out the assessment and resettlement of service users at the 7 day centres attached to the first 13 Residential Care Homes to close.

If you would like to contact the Assessment and Resettlement Team please phone 0121 675 2639 or email kevin.halliday@birmingham.gov.uk.

To search for a new care home visit the Care Search Portal.