DAY CENTRES REVIEW

The Council is facing unprecedented reductions to its budgets and cutting back on support services, back office functions, and making efficiencies in procurement alone, cannot address the size of the reductions needed.

The biggest commitment the Council has made to protecting vulnerable people has been to retain our Fair access to Care criteria at a level lower than most other Local Authorities. So in Salford we continue to provide a social care service to people with Moderate, Substantial and Critical needs. We are one of only 17% of Authorities in the country to do this as most others have tightened their criteria to support only those with Substantial and Critical needs. We have therefore sought to keep as many people receiving support as possible in the City.

This has meant that we have had to change the way we work with people and help them to purchase their own support through Direct Payments and individual budgets.
Over the last few years we have built up community support through low level community activity and groups, especially for older people. The Health Improvement Service is specifically engaged in this kind of support, establishing walking groups, kurling groups, healthy hips and hearts, all designed to provide the right kind of thing to keep people fit and active into their old age.

In Day services, the population has changes in the city so some parts have less older people in them than previously, this meant that last year we closed Humphrey Booth Day Centre in Broughton. (People are also choosing to do different things with their personal budgets).
We also know that people don't like spending lots of time in the buses that take them to the Centres and have been working out ways in which services can be more local and not just based in one building but help them to use their local community facilities.

There is no intention to stop supporting people and if they have assessed needs we cannot remove any care without reviewing their needs and making sure that they can still be met, but this doesn't always have to be in a day centre.
There are also some people for whom there is unlikely to be any alternative options than a specialist centre especially people with significant physical and learning disabilities.

This will ensure that the Council can do what we have said and protect those who are vulnerable, but it is difficult for people to not feel anxious about these changes and the fact that we need to reduce spending.
We are currently using all the feedback we got through the consultation to assess the original proposals and consider what this mean for the Council.
I can assure you that we will take care in this process to think about as many ways as possible to implement the reductions making sure we can still support people who need it.

COUNCILLOR JOHN WARMISHAM