Day-care services for elderly may disappear – SNP

Nairn councillor fears for their future amid continuing social work cash crisis

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Liz MacDonald: campaign

Day-care services for elderly people in the Highlands are being “wound down” amid a continuing social work budget crisis, according to the council’s SNP opposition group.

Nairn councillor Liz MacDonald claims the lack of reference to the facilities in either the ruling admin-istration’s three-year programme or the council’s draft proposals for the future of community care suggest they will disappear.

The issue features on the agenda for next week’s housing and social work committee meeting in Inverness.

Mrs MacDonald has fought a long campaign to save such a facility at McLean Court in her own ward.

She said: “There is not one word about in-house day care for older people.

“I think, similar to McLean Court, they intend shutting the Mackenzie Centre and two satellite centres in Inverness.”

Mrs MacDonald yesterday questioned council statistics on day-care availability within Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey which she said were not borne out by feedback from constituents wanting access to the service.

According to figures from community care chief Jonathan King, the Mackenzie Centre is registered for 60 users per day and regularly attracts 43. Its satellite services of Dalneigh and North Kessock are at their daily capacity of 18.

The Telford Centre at Fort Augustus, with 25 places, regularly caters for 12. The Glen Centre at Aviemore, registered for 20 averages 12 to 16. Grant House at Grantown, is restricted to 10 places while the Wade Centre at Kingussie has 25 registered users, but is restricted to 18 due to space constraints.

Social work chairwoman Margaret Davidson yesterday described the council’s budget crisis as “absolutely awful” and blamed “the banks” for the turmoil affecting authorities across Scotland. But she dismissed fears that services for the elderly would suffer.

“As we’re keeping more people at home, we’re not going to be closing down day care if we can avoid it,” she said. “We may be going part-time, we may ask communities to do more. But lunch clubs, in particular, are really important if we’re keeping people at home longer. We’ll be striving to keep day-care and lunch clubs open.”