Simon Danczuk MP

Fighting for Rochdale, Littleborough and Milnrow

Minister expresses serious concerns over Rochdale's care services

An 87-year old blind woman left without home help after the council removed the service without explanation was just one of many scare stories that the Minister for Care Services, Ivan Lewis MP, heard on a recent visit to Rochdale.

Invited to attend a forum of service users by Rochdale’s Labour Parliamentary Candidate, Simon Danczuk, the Minister spent nearly two hours talking to service users about their concerns with adult care services before visiting a service user’s home in Milnrow to see council adaptations that had been made to her home to enable her to live more independently.

During his discussions with service users, Mr Lewis said there was “no justification” for the poor standards of care that people were experiencing across the Borough.

Included in the harrowing experiences related to him included the story of an 87-year-old woman who suffers from macular degeneration and had received home care for many years. After the council inexplicably withdrew the service giving just 24-hours notice, the woman’s niece said she had wanted to challenge the decision but her aunt was so traumatised that she wouldn’t let any council carers back into her house again. She now has no choice but to pay for private help.

The Minister also heard stories of how the council’s adult care services, which have recently been outsourced to private companies, were deteriorating and users were having to put up with home help constantly arriving late or not turning up at all. In another instance, one woman recounted how an agency employed by the council had sent a young woman to look after her mother who was not even able to cook an egg.

Mr Lewis confirmed that he will be speaking to the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) to personally monitor what sort of improvement, if any, Rochdale Council is making. He noted that since Rochdale Council’s Adult Care Services had been downgraded from two stars to just one last year following a damning report, it was vital that visible signs of improvement were demonstrated immediately.

“There has been a real leadership and management failure in Rochdale and the problem with an organisation in meltdown is that it affects the most vulnerable people,” he said. “There is nothing more important that a local authority is asked to do than look after its most vulnerable people and we have to ask questions about where this is being prioritised. I am sure there are decent people doing their best in a system that is failing and we should remember that because I don’t want to tarnish people. But it is unprofessional, immoral and without justification for people to be treated in such an undignified way.

“These standards are unacceptable. Rochdale has just received a very generous settlement from the Government and an extra £4.5million to develop social care systems. This is not a problem caused by insufficient funding. Rochdale has the money; the problem is that the money is not being spent wisely. The fault lies with poor quality leadership and it is important the council gets its act together.

“Other councils in even more deprived areas are coping with similar challenges to Rochdale; it is a matter of accepting what is wrong, taking responsibility and putting it right."

The Minister added that the Government were investing more than £150 million over the next three years to support the transformation of adult care services in every council to promote a more personalised system, promoting independence, better quality of life and more choice and control.

“Society should be measured by how it treats its elderly population,” he explained, “and my view is that if the level of care we provide isn’t what I would want for my mother then it isn’t acceptable.