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So a ‘new community hub’ is to be set up in Amble at the Fourways in place of the existing day centre.

We are told it will be a base for ‘extended support through partnerships with other agencies’.

We asked the County Council, 'Will the personal budget that people receive enable them to purchase exactly the same level of provision from the private sector that they are currently receiving?'

They told us, "People using Council day care centres will have a choice: they can either opt to have an independent personal budget, with help if they need it to make arrangements using the money, or they can ask us to arrange a more traditional form of day care.

"If they ask us to arrange day care, we will make sure that they have the opportunity to attend a service which will meet their needs. Different services will suit different people, so we will be focusing on what people need and what they want to do, rather than on precisely duplicating the service we provide now."

Yet one local care home owner has told the The Ambler the County hadn’t referred anyone to them since July and are very worried. They also provide day care with pick up and drop off and respite care.

“We’re hoping to help fill the gap,” said Mrs Val Norton, owner of The Grange in Warkworth. “I am seriously concerned,” she said. “Care home owners are saying that if we do not get these referrals, up to 25% of homes could close.”

Another local proprietor, Mr Philip Parkinson of Homecare, said his organisation is hoping to open a day care centre at Pegswood to try to give clients an alternative, because the County is closing so many centres.

“A number of our clients have their own budgets,” he told The Ambler. “It’s done by assessment. The hours they are given are converted to cash. There’s usually enough for them to afford the services they need.”

A County Council spokesperson told us, “Personal budgets will vary greatly depending on people's needs - in the same way that the cost of the services which we provide now varies greatly, from people who need a small amount of practical support at home to remain independent to people who need very high levels of support 24 hours a day. There are no fixed minimum or maximum figures.”

She said, “Personal budgets provide an opportunity for people who need long-term support because of disability or illness to take control over the way in which this is provided. Where people urgently need support after a serious accident or health crisis, we will arrange that as we do now.

‘If it becomes clear that a person will need longer-term support, we will offer them a personal budget, based on the level of services such as home care, day care and short break care which we would traditionally have offered them.

“They will have a choice of either taking full control of this money, and using it to meet their needs in the way that best suits them, or asking us to use the budget to arrange more traditional services to support them.”

Northumberland Care Trust is currently working on an information leaflet for residents which we are told will be out in the near future.

Tim Jones

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