Issue - meetings

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Purpose:  To propose changes to the delivery of West Berkshire Council’s in house care home services as a result of the impact of Covid-19.

Resolved that:

1.          Walnut Close Care Home be closed. Residents would be rehomed in other West Berkshire Care Homes (anticipated to be predominantly in Birchwood for reasons of capacity and proximity) with staff redeployed in those other care homes, resource centres or the reablement team.

2.          Following closure, the Walnut Close site will be placed into the management of the Council’s Asset Management Group for decisions regarding the disposal of the land and building.

This decision is not subject to call in as:

·     the item is deemed as an Urgent Key Decision as set out in Rule 5.4.7 of the Constitution.

therefore it will be implemented immediately.

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The Executive considered an exempt report (Agenda Item 9) concerning a significant change to the delivery of West Berkshire Council’s in house care home services as a result of the impact of Covid-19. The proposed change was an immediate measure to respond to the effect of the pandemic. A far more substantial piece of work was being undertaken to set out a medium to long-term plan for the Council’s wider care home provision. This work had commenced but the impact of Covid had necessitated more urgent action.

RESOLVED that the recommendations in the exempt report be agreed.

Other options considered:

The alternative to the proposal recommended in the report was that the Council would keep Walnut Close open as it was.

This was not considered to be a viable long term option for the following reasons:

·         Ongoing and rising maintenance costs;

·         Considerable recruitment issues in the care home industry across the UK which meant that the vacancies were hard to fill, incurring increased agency costs and reduced level of good, consistent care;

·         Loss of revenue and running at a loss;

·         CQC rating improvement was less achievable within the current building – reputational damage to West Berkshire Council.