This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities...
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT
    • Politics
    • Transport
    • Lifestyle
    • Community
    • Business
    • Crime
    • Environment
    • Health
    • Education
    • Sport
    • Harrogate
    • Ripon
    • Knaresborough
    • Boroughbridge
    • Pateley Bridge
    • Masham
  • What's On
  • Offers
  • Newsletter
  • Podcasts

Interested in advertising with us?

Advertise with us

  • News & Features
  • Your Area
  • What's On
  • Offers
  • Newsletter
  • Podcasts
  • Politics
  • Transport
  • Lifestyle
  • Community
  • Business
  • Crime
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Education
  • Sport
Advertise with us
Subscribe
  • Home
  • Latest News
  • Health

We want to hear from you

Tell us your opinions and views on what we cover

Contact us
Connect with us
  • About us
  • Advertise your job
  • Correction and complaints
Download on App StoreDownload on Google Play Store
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Statement
  • Comments Participation T&Cs
Trust In Journalism

Copyright © 2020 The Stray Ferret Ltd, All Rights Reserved

Site by Show + Tell

25

Mar

Last Updated: 25/03/2025
Health
Health

Call for North Yorkshire Council to rethink £60m dementia hubs plan

by Joe Willis Local Democracy Reporter

| 25 Mar, 2025
Comment

0

screenshot-4-2
Mike Padgham, Independent Care Group chair. Credit: Independent Care Group.

This article is free to read. To access all our content, and support independent local journalism, please subscribe here. An annual subscription costs just 14p a day.

Council chiefs have been urged to rethink plans to spend £60 million replacing elderly care homes with new support hubs for people with dementia.

North Yorkshire Council’s plans would see seven homes owned by the local authority replaced within five years, with the first to be built in the Harrogate and Scarborough areas.

However, the Independent Care Group (ICG), which represents care providers in North Yorkshire and York, has urged the authority to put the proposal out to tender to allow private companies to bid to run the hubs.

In a letter to the authority, ICG chair Mike Padgham said that at a time when the council was under financial pressure, it was essential to consider whether the investment was necessary and if independent care providers could deliver the hubs more efficiently.

The letter said:

Investing in the existing independent sector would be a more effective use of resources, generating greater economic returns and reducing long-term costs across the health and social care system.

Historically, local authorities moved away from in-house provision because commissioning from the independent sector delivered better value for the public purse. Independent providers bring existing infrastructure, economies of scale, and specialist expertise, making them best placed to deliver these services efficiently.

Last month, the care industry held a day of action, including a rally at the Houses of Parliament and meetings with local MPs, to call for increased funding for the sector amid concerns its pleas for help were ignored by the government in its latest budget.

Professor Martin Green OBE, chief executive of Care England, a national representative body for the adult care sector, added: 

Rather than creating new services, the council should be focusing on supporting and investing in the independent sector it already has, helping to build capacity and improve care.

Choosing to start a new service now risks sending the wrong message, suggesting a lack of confidence in the market when it is more important than ever to strengthen and sustain it.

Council response

In his response to the ICG, Richard Webb, the council’s corporate director for health and adult services, said most of the authority’s current homes dated back to the 1970s and 1980s and were in “clear need of modernisation”.

He added:

The most effective, value-for-money way to upgrade them is to build new facilities.

In doing so, we are mindful of current gaps in the care market, future predicted growth in demand for care provision and the need to ensure good value for taxpayers’ money.

Mr Webb said 393 beds would be provided from the investment — 250 in new, council-run homes and 143 in the independent sector.

He added: 

This approach aligns with our long-standing commitment to be a direct care provider, which has always been unambiguous and clear.

Given the rural nature of North Yorkshire and the complexity within local care markets, we will always reserve the right to provide services directly, and to intervene in the market, when and where necessary.

The council says nearly £900,000 was spent last year on servicing and maintenance at its existing elderly people’s homes in Bedale, Filey, Harrogate, Pickering, Selby, Skipton and Pickering.

The council has calculated that almost £10m would be required over the next five years to maintain safe standards at the seven homes.

StarMan admits violent assault at Harrogate pubStarHarrogate woman admits doing the school run whilst drunkStarPolice reveal latest crime figures for North Yorkshire