NEWS BEDFORD’S NEW 72-BED HOME COMPLETE


Phase one of the latest residential and dementia care environments for Bedford is now complete as NorthStar, the care home development company, manages the design and build of a modern-day care facility for Bedford Citizens Housing Association (BCHA).


The Charter House project, which now has CQC approval, consists of a brand new 72-bed residential and dementia care home to replace the current outdated 64-bed facility, which is due for re-development into 42 Extra Care apartments later this year.


The 72-bed care home is now complete and features an additional 1,000sqm of space to accommodate the very latest in leisure facilities for residents, including a restaurant, gym, cinema, spa and beauty facilities for residents to enjoy.


The development was no mean feat as NorthStar had to overcome a logistical issue of considering how an Army cadet building, placed in the middle of the proposed development


site, could fit into the design plans for the new care home.


Ian Holmes, Director at NorthStar, commented: “We didn’t take the easy route and build around the old Army cadet building. Preferring to take a pragmatic view of the project, we worked with the Estates Department at East Anglia Reserve Forces and Cadets Association and provided them with a new facility in a better position with several classrooms, up-to-date facilities, a hall, and new parade ground.”


Vanessa Connolly, CEO of BCHA, said: “We’d like to thank NorthStar for sensitively managing the development. Their resourcefulness and flexibility throughout as they managed concerns, expectations and obstacles is commendable and we are over the moon with the results.”


FIVE MINUTE CARE VISITS LEAVING OLDER PEOPLE AT RISK


Home care visits to thousands of older people are being limited to just five minutes, an investigation by the Daily Mail has found.


Freedom of information requests made by the newspaper revealed that 72 out of the 103 councils in England that provided data used 15-minute slots in 2012/13, accounting for 1.8million visits.


Care staff told the Mail that many of these appointments only last five or ten minutes because they include travel time.


Six of the councils actively commissioned five-minute care visits in the same period, which were chiefly provided by private firms. These were Bury, Derbyshire, Dudley, Leicestershire and North Lincoln.


In response to the findings, care minister Norman Lamb said:


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“It is totally inappropriate and unacceptable for frail elderly people and those with disabilities to receive care visits to address their personal needs in this sort of time.


“It is just fanciful to think that elderly people can be provided with compassionate and kind care in this sort of time slot.”


Central government cuts in social care spending for older people has fallen by over £1billion since 2011 – from £9.95billion to £8.85billion last year.


Some home care providers say it is these spending cuts that are threatening the quality of services, particularly for people with dementia.


Managing director of Right at Home, Ken Deary, commented: “Charities such as Age UK and the Alzheimer’s Society will tell you that longer duration person-centred home care


can have a huge impact in helping to stabilise people’s conditions and improve their quality of life.


“But it is now all but impossible to deliver those standards of service using local authority funding alone. This means the majority of people must either top up their budgets, as they do with Right at Home and other quality care providers, or put up with standards of care that do not meet their needs and too often leave them treated without the dignity and respect they are entitled to; and at worst at serious risk.”


Deary concluded: “The Government has got to revise its care funding strategy and give this the attention it urgently needs in order to support vulnerable adults with longer unrushed visit times that provide quality dignified care.”


www.tomorrowscare.co.uk


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