Your Day, Your Say – Adult Social Care Day Centre Consultation

The council wants the best quality of life for all its citizens and as a part of this is committed to improving its day centres service for adults with disabilities. We must balance this with the need to be more efficient as a council.

The consultation, called ‘Your Day, Your Say’, is aimed at ensuring the council’s centres provide the appropriate support in an appropriate setting, which provide residents with access to their local community enabling them to thrive and reach their full potential.

The purpose of the consultation is to make sure that people have a chance to tell the council about their views on the proposals for its Day Centres in Birmingham.

The preferred option in the proposal is to rationalise the nine current day centres and to reduce to five, which would be: Alderman Bowen in Bordesley Green; Ebrook in Sutton Coldfield; Elwood in Erdington; Hockley Centre; and Moseley Centre.  The citizens currently supported by the following four Centres, Beeches GoLDD; Harborne, Heartlands and Fairway, would be supported to move, along with staff, to the five remaining Centres.

Cllr Rob Pocock, cabinet member for health and social care, said: “We have reviewed our day centres service post-pandemic, and it’s clear that they were valued by citizens, carers and staff, but that they had declining attendance and needed to offer more flexible and responsive support to citizens.

“We also have a significant financial challenge, with adult social care having to deliver £65m of savings over the next two years. The proposals for the service, in addition to delivering savings, is to develop a more flexible, person-centred offer that reflects our key outcomes and principles for citizens, carers and family members.

“We remain committed to ensuring that no citizens would lose their service, nor staff their jobs, but may mean that the support would be provided from a different centre. Consolidating our existing centres will enable us to diversify our offer in line with citizen’s expectations and thus ultimately improve outcomes. I know this is a difficult time and people will be worried about changes to a service they are used to, so I would urge people to take part in the consultation. It is important that we hear your views so that we can decide the best way forward in developing this service for the long-term future.”