Council's adult care boss defends beds switch

Derbyshire County Council has defended its decision to close care beds in Belper for people recovering after leaving hospital, saying new specialised centres were getting better results.

Campaigners said they had been promised by health officials the 20 "reablement" places would stay in the town, but they have now been moved 10 miles away to Ilkeston.

The beds had been hosted in the Ada Belfield Centre, a care home opened in 2020 by the council that is now being sold to the private sector.

Joss Barnes, cabinet member for adult care, said: "The homes which we've relocated to will be offering just community support beds and by doing that we can see positive results already."

Carrie Terry, from the Belper Together group, said the sale of the Ada Belfield centre had hurt the town.

"We're still reeling from the fact that a state-of-the-art centre that was built only five years ago for the town is about to to pass into private hands and to lose the reablement beds as well is really a double blow," she said.

The privatisation of the Ada Belfield care home and the moving of the community support beds was first planned when the county council was run by the Conservatives along with the sale of eight other care homes.

Campaigners had expected support for their cause from Derbyshire's new Reform UK administration, which was elected in May.

Barnes agreed he had changed his position on the issue since taking up his cabinet post.

"When I came into the cabinet, all of the news we received previously was that care homes were being sold off left, right, and centre," he said.

"I came in to have a look at this and see what we could do differently.

"But the more I looked into the transformation model and the positive results that we would envision and which we are receiving, the more and more that I agreed that this was the right call to make."

The care beds had been transferred to the Ada Belfield home when Belper's Babington Hospital was closed.

A spokesperson for the NHS Derby and Derbyshire integrated care board said: "Our overriding driver was to deliver more rehabilitation and reablement services in people's own homes.

"Where bedded rehabilitation care is required we need this to be as effective and efficient as possible."

The "one model" system of care in Derbyshire now sends people who are ready to leave hospital but not well enough to go home to one of three specialised centres in the county.

Barnes said it was already making a difference.

"People are getting better quicker because of the specialised care that they're getting now," he said.

"The length of stay on average is reduced down to less than 20 days now and we've provided more beds for Derbyshire by doing this."

In Belper, Carrie Terry said people's recovery would be slower because relatives and friends might struggle to visit.

She told the BBC the centre in Ilkeston was two or three bus rides and a walk away from Belper.

"It's just not practical and it won't happen and people won't get better as quickly as they might have done or even at all," she said.

With the lease of the Ada Belfield centre now up for sale, Barnes said the county council was focusing on how it would look after the growing number of people with dementia and allowing the private sector to provide general care for older people.

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