EXTRA help for adult carers is vital, a voluntary group leader claims, after a father killed his severely disabled son because he feared placing him into full-time care.

Chairman of Stafford Carers, Frank James, spoke out saying local people were “at their wits’ end” and said he feared that the tragedy of Christopher O’Rourke – who was killed by his devoted father Kevin – could be repeated.

Carers have the option of managing their individual budgets – providing them with an opportunity to pay privately for services specifically tailored to their needs.

However, Mr James said some people were being pressurised into the personalised payments scheme, creating extra responsibility – which is having a knockon effect on the viability of day-care centres who depend on payments from carers to offer their services.

The day-care centres are a lifeline to people who wish to continue to care for their relatives at home and do not wish them to go into full-time care.

Mr O’Rourke junior, aged 47, had been receiving “wonderful” support at the county council-run Cooperative Street day-care centre, but his father was worried over the quality of life his son would enjoy if placed into full-time care.

Mr James said: “Carers and parents are under constant pressures to take up personalised budgets to look after their loved ones.

“This is creating a society of fear and anxiety. They have enough problems looking after their loved ones 24/7 without having the additional worries of running financial budgets.

Rumours have been circulating this week that the Cooperative Street and Limetree Avenue centres were facing closure – causing great concern to local carers.

“Threats of closure of care centres that can give parents and carers respite for a few hours a day or a couple of nights a week are not helping the situation. None of us wish to witness the tragic circumstances that the O’Rourke family suffered in Crab Lane.

“We all know locally the love and affection that Mr and Mrs O’Rourke gave to their son plus the wonderful support from the carers in Co-operative Street centre.” Christopher’s mother, Avril O’Rourke, said it was vital that the Co-operative Street day centre remained open.

She said: “The whole tragic inquest happened because Christopher’s dad could not stand the idea of Christopher going into care. Yet it was wrongly reported that he actually went into care each weekend. He had never ever been in care over the weekend.

“But for the last 13 years he had been attending the excellent residential care home at Co-operative Street, run by Staffordshire County Council. Christopher went on a daily basis for about five hours and was looked after by caring staff who attended to all his many needs with sensitivity and kindness.” Matthew Ellis, Staffordshire county council’s cabinet member for adults and wellbeing, said there were no plans to close centres and claimed there was no agenda at the council to force people into taking up personalised budgets.

“We have no plans to close down any care centres. As numbers go down we will be looking at other opportunities.

People are under no pressure whatsoever to take up personalised budgets. We are utterly changing lives for the better. People are doing things they thought they would never do again. Any pressure is imaginary.” Talking about the O’Rourke tragedy Mr Ellis added: “The gentleman was clearly really concerned. But we are more open than any time in the history of Staffordshire.

We’re not reducing the budget on social care – what it is about is getting away from this historical situation where we wrote people off.”

http://www.staffordshirenewsletter.co.uk/News/Desperate-carers-appeal-for-help-03112011.htm