My city has stated it is going to close my daughter's day centre. I hav'n't come across another like it and it works extremely well.The reason of the closure is purely money saving! Their fault because they didn't respond to requests of simple repair and now it needs more money spent to rectify their mismanagement. They are saying other places will be offered but as you are all aware, places are CLOSING,plus this apparently being the only one of its type,so a similar one just isnt there!! They seem determined to push direct payment ,which will of course put a huge amount of extra work on an already over worked carer.(Unpaid of course) I find this a travesty of justice and wonder if any of you know an area in the new Carers act that might help our fight to keep the centre open or another avenue we can go down ? We have a petition and also a website.Google will take you to our website which also has the petition.It is Save the Fairways day centre from closure.Add Birmingham and up it comes.(Am not PC competent aged and disabled myself even though a carer for 50 years) so am sorry there isn't a direct link. I know you are a very supportive and competent website for Carers so ask for help!! Many thanks for just reading this!!
Cutbacks in respite care allied with the introduction of charges , closely followed by the closure of day centres across the country through " Lack of use " has been recorded numerous times on carer forums since 2004 ... a " Blog " of sorts ran on the old PRT site ( Now Carers Trust ) from late 2004 until the summer of 2005 ... from memory , 63 / 64 reported cases ... and , short of the well recorded protest in Lambeth at that time , together with several disabled carees taking on the Lincolnshire Council , NOTHING was ever done to stop the closures ... by ANY supporting organisation or political party.
Nothing in the CarerWatch archives on " Lambeth " beyong mention of contact being lost with the orginal site which sprung up shortly after the infamous hikes in care costs were announced by Lambeth Council back in 2005.
Nothing on a Google search beyond several other Lambeth protests since ... at least those on one manor are expressing their views ???
" We are liaising with the Local Authority " was the best anyone could get out of them .... liasise they may have done but ... no day care centre was ever spared leaving hundreds of thousands of carees and carers abandoned to their own fate.
At one stage , late 2005 , two national newspapers told me not to send any more articles on the closures as they had reached satuation point , and said articles were no longer " News worthy " .... didn't sell newspapers , the public had had enough of them !
Fast forward to 2017.
Closures are still happening as the first posting clearly relates.
What remedies are available ?
The Care Act has been muted ... the " Should / Could / Would " Act ... possibily something within the Childrens Act , 1989 ?
Question is ... who out there is looking at the legal side in anticipation of mounting a challenge ?
If past history is anything to go by , it will take individuals acting together to explore this avenue.