Care Alliance take ‘emotional’ decision to close
THE North and West Sutherland Care Alliance (NWSCA) management have taken the final decision to close down after failing to come to an agreement with Highland Council over funding, it was announced earlier this week.
NWSCA’s management committee took the “difficult and emotional” decision to shut up shop at a crisis meeting in Durness last Friday.
Redundancy notices have been issued to the group’s eight employees.
News of the closure has been greeted with disappointment and anger locally. A petition has been launched in Durness, calling for the local authority to give NWSCA the funding it needs.
The organisation, which has been operating for 12 years, provides support and home-based respite care for the elderly as well as vulnerable adults and children in North and West Sutherland.
Around 70 clients now do not know who their care provider will be when the group ceases to exist on Friday, 30th April.
The closure decision follows the breakdown in protracted and complex negotiations with Highland Council over a renewal of the group’s three-year service contract, which runs out at the end of March.
At issue was money, with Highland Council, which meets around 60 per cent of the group’s £120,000 operating costs, planning to cut its funding by around 58 per cent.
During negotiations, Highland Council suggested that NWSCA could make up the shortfall in funding by taking over the running locally of the authority’s Care at Home service.
But Care Alliance managers rejected this offer after discovering they would be paid a third less than it currently costs the authority to provide the Care at Home service.
NWSCA coordinator Sylvia Mackay said: “At its meeting on 3rd February, the management committee considered our budgeting position following cuts by Highland Council of 40 per cent and 58 per cent in the next two financial years.
“It was agreed that we couldn’t continue to provide a sustainable service at this level of funding.
“Highland Council did offer us the opportunity to take on the Care at Home service, suggesting that economies of scale would generate income which could be used to continue the home based respite service.
“But as our funding would have been two thirds what it currently costs the council to run the Care at Home service, we felt we could not take this on.”
Mrs Mackay added: “I really did hope someone was going to come up with a sensible solution at the last moment and say ‘no, it does not make any sense for this to happen’.
“But we didn’t have any choice. This was a difficult and emotional decision to make and it was taken with deep regret.”
North, West and Central Sutherland Councillor George Farlow said he was hugely disappointed at the outcome of the negotiations.
Meanwhile the Care Alliance’s closure announcement has sparked a backlash against the local authority by communities on the north and west coasts.
A petition has been launched in Durness and district demanding that the Care Alliance be properly funded to carry out its work.
Durness Community Council chairman Kevin Crowe said: “We discussed this issue at a community council meeting last night. Many people in Durness are very angry at the way the Care Alliance has been treated.
“For many years the Care Alliance has provided an excellent service – a service that is flexible and has addressed the needs of those who need care and also their carers.
“It has always been a service that is client-led and not agency-led and we are very, very concerned that as a result of Highland Council’s attitude towards the Care Alliance, vulnerable people in Durness and the surrounding area will suffer.
“We also feel that at the end of the day this could end up costing the tax payer even more money as it could lead to increasing numbers of people having to end their days in residential care or hospital.”
Highland council social work director Bill Alexander told the Northern Times earlier this week: “The council is disappointed that the North and West Sutherland Care Alliance does not wish to be commissioned to take on additional services.
“We now have to plan on that basis though, and we continue to have discussion with other providers about the delivery of these services. We seek to ensure continuity for service users, and we anticipate working with the North and West Sutherland Care Alliance to ensure this.”
‘I will be totally stranded now...’
MOTHER-OF-FOUR Marie Mackay (48) found herself in need of support after an undiagnosed illness damaged her spinal cord. She was left with numbness in her legs and poor mobility.
The North West Sutherland Care Alliance enabled Mrs Mackay, 118 Newlands, Bettyhill, to get out of her house.
“Jennifer Griffiths from the Care Alliance visits me once a week and she will take me wherever I want to go,” says Mrs Mackay.
“I do have an automatic car but I can’t drive long distances and only use it to go to the local shop. Jennifer will take me shopping, or to the swimming pool at Bettyhill, or to see family in Embo and Inverness.
“Since my illness, I have lost confidence and having Jennifer at my side is so therapeutic. I will be lost if Jennifer can no longer come in. She has been my rock and my way out of my cage, as I call it.”
KENNY Mackay, of 4 Munro Place, Bettyhill, looks forward to his weekly visit from Jennifer Griffiths, a carer employed by the NWSCA.
The 52-year-old, who lives by himself, is almost blind, and has been left severely disabled as a result of two devastating strokes.
He has difficulty walking and needs an electric buggy to go any distance and Mr Mackay says he would be “totally stranded,” without the support of the North West Sutherland Care Alliance.
A carer pops in to see him every Monday and checks to make sure he has everything he needs for the week ahead. Once a fortnight Kenny is taken shopping to Thurso or to visit his elderly mother in Skerray.
“I’m unable to work so I cannot afford taxis,” he explains.
Mr Mackay says he is “upset and angry” that the Care Alliance has been forced to close down.
