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Foster care home is to be closed
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Fosters care home residents to be moved out

By Lucy Thorne
May 16, 2012

Pensioners will be moved out after the decision to close Fosters care home was rubber-stamped by the council's executive last night.

Despite pleas by staff, residents and their families, Wokingham Borough councillors took the 'difficult decision' to close the Woodley home and work will start on moving residents to other homes.

Fosters care home to close

The home in Fosters Lane, which provides 24-hour accommodation and care for the frail, elderly and those with dementia, was in need of a major refurbishment, estimated to cost more than £400,000 in the next two years and more than £700,000 in the next five years.

Even then the council claimed it would not meet the Care Quality Commission’s standards.

Cllr Julian McGhee-Sumner, executive member for health and wellbeing, said: “This has been a very difficult decision for us to take.

“It’s clear from the consultation the care provided at Fosters is greatly valued and held in the highest esteem by residents, their families and the local community.

“We’ve been clear this isn’t the reason why we want to close Fosters, there is no doubt that the quality of care is high, but the building is not fit for purpose.”

There are 22 residential and nursing homes within five miles of Fosters and two extra care schemes.

Residents will be offered accommodation at Alexandra Place in Woodley, Beeches Manor and Suffolk Lodge in Wokingham.

The council is negotiating with Alexandra Grange in Wokingham, to move groups of residents together, and says it will do all it can to move any staff who wish to move with them.

The council also made a commitment to residents that no one will be worse off financially.

Financial assistance will also be given to relatives for travel costs as well as those staff who choose to transfer employment to continue to support residents for up to 18 months.

Cllr McGhee-Sumner added: “The consultation was robust and thorough. We met relatives on a number of occasions and deferred making the decision on its future to allow us more time to fully consider options which emerged during the consultation.

“While we understand moving residents could be disruptive, we do have an opportunity to offer a much better standard of accommodation to our older residents, in a way that meets their needs and aspirations. If we do this now, we have a greater chance of moving residents and staff together if they wish. We have been able to hold vacancies at a number of local care homes to facilitate moves.

“Work will begin to ensure resident’s moves are carried out with the utmost sensitivity and we will take into account each person’s health and care needs as part of the managed close down.”

The consultation into the care home’s future ran from November to February and was then extended for a month following requests from relatives of residents. The council received 67 responses and two petitions to save the home.

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Douglas Court was run as rented accommodation by a Housing Association - a successor to the Council in providing rented accommodation in the District. They decided they could not afforded to properly maintain/refurbish it, closed it down evicting some very elderly residents who had been happily there for some 20 yearts, and are selling the site to a developer for housing. Sound familiar??

Bingley, Woodley
22/05/2012 at 21:08

Councillor Baker: Whilst I don't want to bore, I am glad Buckingham Palace isn't in Wokingham District/ sorry Borough. As a victorian building it would be demoilished as an unsuitable residence for elderly people. It ain't the age of a building, it is the efforts made to refurbish and maintain when required that determine its usefulness.

Bingley, Woodley
22/05/2012 at 14:46

Cllr Baker - WBC has no assets in Woodley town centre because the Conservative led council sold them all off a few years ago (I think this was the point Bingley was making)

In 2003/4 the Conservative led council sold shops in the town centre In 2007/8 the Conservative led council sold the doctors surgery

In terms of closing Fosters the Conservatives entered the election period saying “no decision has been made yet”, but the Conservative controlled council proceeded to make the decision with indecent haste; less than two weeks after the election. Far from being hidden many people feel that the Conservative led council had effectively already made the decision to close Fosters before the election.

Where did you see the “full page articles” on Fosters in the Lib Dems literature? There were so many stories highlighting bad local decisions by the Tories that we didn’t have enough room for a full page! As well as the need to show respect to residents of Fosters we had stories about:- - the disastrous implementation of the controversial waste scheme - the plan to get public toilets back into Woodley after the Conservatives decided not to have council owned public toilets anymore - the need for regeneration in Woodley town centre as well as Wokingham.

Phil Challis, woodley
22/05/2012 at 01:15

Bingley - I do not know what I have personally done to make you so vitriolic toward me? But if you are going to attack it might be a little more constructive if your facts were actually correct.

I note that you have visited Fosters and so have I and I wonder if we both went to the same place. The bedroom I saw reminded me of pictures of a victorian asylum and this was something that could not be changed by simple maintenance measures. You say that this service was put out to tender and the cheapest offer accepted which is totally untrue. It is Council staff running it and always has been. I wonder if you have visited either Alexandra Place (Woodley) and Alexandra Grange (Wokingham) and seen both the excellent level of care and the facilities there?

You personally accuse me of supporting selling public assets in the town - again false as we do not have any assets in Woodley town.

You also accuse me of supporting planning approvals contrary to local opinion - again false.

Your final comment about the home on Wilderness Road is another flight of fancy. This was never a Council owned facility so your comment is again totally incorrect.

If you are going to attack me then please base it on facts and not simply on your fertile imagination.

My final comment about this matter is the expected coment from the Liberal Democrats about hiding the decision until after the election. The facts are that this whole process started in November 2011 and it has been clear from that date that closing was an option. In fact literature from both them and Labour had full page articles saying exactly that before and during the local elections. So to suggest that this option was somehow hidden from voters is extremely difficult to understand.

Cllr Keith Baker
19/05/2012 at 09:41

Thankyou for the advice, councillor.

Damiano_Tommassi, Wokingham
17/05/2012 at 11:09

Damiano_Tommassi, Wokingham / alex_f, Wokingham ...We have to in the end believe in democracy and that means you put pressure on your (likely) Tory councillor to represent your views in the chambers, not take your vote and then act with no impunity.

I assure you that the comments made in this paper do pressurise elected represented. You need to keep this up, the ruling Tories will start to listen especially if they feel that they will start to lose seats (I am sorry to sound so cynical but believe me that does focus minds).

Your other option is to get signatures against the supermarket. If you get 1500 you are than able to have your motion debated in council. This done by residents is very hard for elected members to ignore.

Lastly, and for me personally I cannot believe that they closed Foster. Wokingham are planning to spend £87m to redevelop Wokingham Town centre (and I agree that, that may be required and will be good for the area) that spend for me is not a priority against £1.1m required to keep Fosters open, against staff that are being made redundant, for the change to bin collections, for cutting services to the unemployed youth or the elderly. We have to have priorities that reflect the needs of our community.

Cllr. Tahir Maher, Earley
17/05/2012 at 10:48

Cllr. Maher and alex_f - I am of the same opinion. I ask again - is there nothing we can do?

Damiano_Tommassi, Wokingham
17/05/2012 at 10:16

@Cllr. Tahir Maher - good point. On the same theme, notice as well that last month, we had an announcement that there would be an Elms Field 'consultation' (which was meant to be this month, looks like it isn't happening any time soon). Then over the next couple of months the planning applications are due to be put in and the supermarket is due to be announced, meaning the 'consultation' will likely not affect it in the slightest.

alex_f, Wokingham
17/05/2012 at 09:18

Last year 3 weeks after the local elections, the Tories announced the privatisation of the libraries; this year within 2 weeks after the elections the Tories announce closure of Fosters. Consultation by the Tories is proving to be a smoke screen to buy them time until the elections are held and then they can quickly do what everyone is telling them not to do – and that gives them a year for people to forget what they did. Is there a pattern emerging?

Cllr. Tahir Maher, Earley
17/05/2012 at 09:00

I’m not surprised at Fosters closing as at the meetings held with Wokingham council I felt the decision had already been made, and before it was made public. Whatever questions/ concerns were raised would not make a difference. What I am shocked at is Fosters only has 6 months life left, as the residents would all have been moved out, and Fosters will be closed. I just hope the residents can cope with the enforced move. I would like to THANK all the staff as they have and are looking after my dad brilliantly and it’s the best care home he has been in. Fosters and the entire staff will be sorely missed, I just hope they continue in the caring industry and they transfer to the other care homes in the area.

RV 1968
16/05/2012 at 21:42

So the con-merchants at WBC have learnt nothing from the anti-Council vote by those that aren't true blue and who don't know how to vote otherwise. And being true blue probably means anyway you believe you won't need to end up in a Council care home. The Council are asset stripping without regard to providing cost effective Council services for the elderly who need care. It isn't the age of the building that matters, it is the care put into it. The Council are guilty of letting it become run down over the last 20 years, hence it now looks worn out, but refurbishment would change all that. Yes, I have visited Fosters and the privatised 'care' provided does not compare with Council directly run homes of the 70s, but then the services weren't put out to tender and the cheapest offer accepted and no-one being prepared to admit they did the wrong thing. Selling the Fosters site is a disgrace. If they really must 'offload it', why not lease it at a peppercorn so that the cost of the accommodation will be so much cheaper and the Council can retain some control. There is no going back ever from this decision. I ask what Councillor Baker has ever done for Woodley (closed toilets, sold the site, sold the public assets it held in the town, closed homes, used open space for new schools whilst seeling the former sites for new housing, built no new infrastructure, supported planning approvals contrary to local opinion, the non-list is endless), just changing services for the worse (waste). One day you ALL will be old and realise you allowed some bad things to happen. And in conclusion, the ex-OAP home in Wilderness Road has now stood empty, boarded up, for years, and that was another home that the Council said had to be offloaded. Woodley and Earley have been stripped of rentable public OAP sheltered accommodation.

Bingley, Woodley
16/05/2012 at 20:23

@Grumpy Old Student - I understand your point and I don't usually part-take in council bashing; however it doesn't address what is infuriating to alot of people on here. The problem is that the views of those involved and asked in the 'consultation' were not actually taken into consideration, and it was effectively a box-ticking exercise. According to the minutes, most people agreed that improvements were needed, but strongly opposed a closure of the home. Location was also a very important factor. And by most of the figures seen, the cost of refurbing would not work out that differently to the costs involved in relocating.

Hence the argument which most people are making here - if the points raised during the consultation were so strong against the closure of the home and relocation of the residents to other parts of the borough, and it didn't affect the outcome in the slightest, why do the consultation? Why dress it up as if any of it actually matters and the outcome can actually be changed? This is echoed in the concerns from the respondents, that they already thought the decision had been made.

alex_f, Wokingham
16/05/2012 at 15:54

Grumpy Old Student - I'm sure that the new accommodation will be lovely, and so it should be - our elderly deserve good care. My gripe is over the loss of an entire care home - not during renovation, or demolishing and rebuilding; the home will be lost and not replaced. As we are 'all living longer', and the population increases every year, where will you and I go to receive care in our old age, if all the care homes are to be sold to private developers (so that everyone can make money, woohoo, excellent - at the cost of our elderly)?

The council's minutes mention that, in a survey, people would rather live alone than in a care home - which is true, of course most people would. When you're not in a position to do that, though, when you're too frail, there's little choice. And even less choice if we sell all the care homes!

Damiano_Tommassi, Wokingham
16/05/2012 at 15:33

Grumpy Old Student, Berks. Yes, we would all like a new, clean, purpose-built alternative but you must be deluded if you think this is the proposed alternative. I assumed the £400,000 was going to be spent on turning the present building into something acceptable. Now we have nothing but a local housebuilder getting richer.

Bigboy, woodley
16/05/2012 at 15:30

Its a shame that Wokingham couldn't spend some that £87m they have earmarked for Wokingham Town centre redevelopment and put aside £1.1m for Fosters home