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13
Aug
MP warns of impact on emergency services if council scraps Lifeline service
The MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, Tom Gordon, has written to the leader of North Yorkshire Council warning that scrapping warden responder service Lifeline will push demand onto ambulance, police and fire services.
Mr Gordon has joined 10 Liberal Democrat councillors in calling for changes to the county’s Lifeline service to be paused until residents have been consulted and the impact on them assessed.
What is Lifeline?
Lifeline is the council’s 24/7 monitored alarm service for elderly, disabled and vulnerable residents. Under the approved changes, the warden responder service, where council staff attend a resident’s home after an alarm is raised, is to be withdrawn, and routine contact for users in Richmondshire, Harrogate and Selby is to fall from monthly or quarterly visits to a single annual check. Fees are to be unified across the county.
The former district areas of Scarborough, Craven and Hambleton are not covered by the Lifeline service and there is no proposal to extend it to them.
Simple incidents 'could become 999 calls'
Mr Gordon said the changes were agreed without consulting the people who rely on the service, without a published equality or health impact assessment, and without formal consultation with the emergency services, who could be left to pick up the demand. He said incidents currently resolved by a warden at the door, many of which need no ambulance, police officer or fire crew, would become 999 calls.
Mr Gordon also said the move towards equality across North Yorkshire was being achieved by reducing provision where it existed, rather than extending it to Scarborough, Craven and Hambleton, which do not have a Lifeline service.
Mr Gordon said:
Lifeline is not a gadget on the wall. For a lot of my constituents, it is the reason they can carry on living in their own home. Taking away the responder service and cutting contact to once a year is a significant change to people’s lives, and those people were never asked.
When we were forced into this new single North Yorkshire Council we were promised a consistent standard across North Yorkshire. Residents warned at the time that this harmonisation would turn out to be code for levelling down to the cheapest option available. On Lifeline, that fear has been proved right.
Doubt over soundness of vote
Mr Gordon also pointed out that the decision was taken without a public consultation or a vote of full council, and a subsequent call-in was defeated by seven votes to six after Cllr Chris Aldred, who represents High Harrogate and Kingsley, was advised he could not take part because he had signed the call-in request.
Councillor Peter Lacey, leader of the Liberal Democrat and Liberal Group on North Yorkshire Council, said:
This decision was taken without asking a single one of the people who depend on the service, and when we called it in, the referral to full council was lost by one vote in circumstances that leave real doubt over whether that vote was sound.
The least the council can do is pause, publish the impact assessment, and let people have their say before the responders are taken away.
Call to consult and extend service
In his letter, the MP asks the council to pause implementation, consult users, families and carers, publish equality and health impact assessments, consult formally with Yorkshire Ambulance Service, North Yorkshire Police, North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service and the Integrated Care Board, and set out how a Lifeline offer will be extended to the parts of the county that currently have none.
Mr Gordon has also asked to meet the leader, executive members and service directors as soon as possible, and for the letter to be circulated to all North Yorkshire MPs.
In addition to Mr Lacey, the other Liberal Democrat councillors who signed the letter are Cllrs Andrew Murday, Bryn Griffiths, Andrew Timothy, Monika Slater, Steve Mason, Matt Walker, Phillip Broadbank and Hannah Gostlow.
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