Carer slams decision to hold meeting in private

11:50am Monday 10th October 2011

A CARER has questioned why a health services meeting was held in private as Knutsford care centres face closure.

Charlotte Peters Rock, whose husband Cyril suffers from dementia, has slammed Cheshire East Council for denying her access to the September meeting of the health and wellbeing scrutiny committee.

The Allostock resident has been told that the meeting was informal and private to discuss the committee’s work programme and training needs.

But Mrs Peters Rock argues that since the authority is holding a consultation to look into the future of day and respite services, the meeting should have been made public.

She said: “Carers’ health is being thrown to the floor in Knutsford at the moment.

“At the very time we need a health and wellbeing committee the most, that’s the time when people can’t go to it.”

As reported in the Guardian, Knutsford’s care centres Bexton Court and Stanley Centre are expected to close to enhance facilities in Wilmslow, Congleton and Macclesfield. In an email, James Morley, scrutiny officer for the council’s democratic services, said that the ‘brand new’ committee would not begin official operations until April 2013 as part of a White Paper published in November 2010.

But the situation became more confused as the same scrutiny committee held public meetings in June and July and another public meeting is scheduled for today.

The minutes included in the agenda of the July meeting even wrongly named the September committee date as public.

Mr Morley said: “I can assure you that work is continuing during this time to scrutinise health and adult social care issues.

“The adult social care scrutiny committee continues to operate as normal and will deal with all the issues concerned.”

But Mrs Peter Rock added: “The stress which this places on people who effectively have a lifetime, 24 hour a day commitment and are already at full stretch is just unacceptable.”

http://www.knutsfordguardian.co.uk/news/9291792.