Council pegs charges for day centre care

Herefordshire Council has pegged charges for providing day centre care for older people at £4 per hour, compared with the national average of £7.30 per hour. The move follows consultation during the summer on proposals to charge fairly for a range of services for older people - such as care in the home or attendance at day centres.

All those who receive services have a financial assessment and the charge is based on how much they can reasonably afford to contribute in line with national guidance. For a number of years people using care services in Herefordshire have paid a much lower contribution for their care than those in other local authorities.

The consultation found people raised concerns about proposals to increase day centre fees from £2.90 to £7.30 an hour in line with other local authorities. As a result of these concerns, the council's cabinet has approved recommendations to limit the rise by £1.10 to £4 an hour. This will be reviewed again in March 2009.

The council is implementing a new charging policy which it believes is fair and makes the best use of the money available. It compared Herefordshire's income and charging position with other similar authorities and revealed that a larger percentage of people using the services make no contribution, or pay only a small proportion of the full charge. It also highlighted the fact that people's contributions were 50 per cent lower than the average of other authorities compared with in the review.

"The vast majority of our older people are on fixed incomes and we appreciate that changes may worry them," said Councillor Olwyn Barnett, cabinet member for adult social care and health. "We'd like to assure them that we will do all we can to minimise the impact these changes will have. In the meantime, we will continue to improve the quality of services and expand the variety of services we offer," she added.

Along with many local authorities across the country, Herefordshire has to act in the face of increasing demand for its care services. With a growing elderly population and increasing numbers of people in need of care, the demand is growing above the national average. The council also faces the added pressure that for the fifth year running it has received no extra money from government to help pay for the increased demand on services.

Herefordshire is bracing itself for increased pressure on local public services as forecasts show nearly a 20 per cent rise in numbers of pensioners living in the county by 2011. The increase is much larger than that expected for this age group in England and Wales (12 per cent), according to Herefordshire Council's own research based on figures from the Office for National Statistics and the Government Actuary's Department. Nationally, local authorities are looking at a £1.8 billion deficit in budgets for adult social care. Herefordshire supports more people in registered care than many other areas, so it will be hit harder than most.

Herefordshire Council is spending over £40 million (about a quarter of its entire budget) this year on adult social care.

The council reports that it is beginning a separate review of how day care is provided across the county and will be consulting the public on this in the near future.