Adult day service users say Redlands centre is '˜unsuitable'

As part of a reorganisation of adult day services which will see Oxfordshire County Council’s health and wellbeing centres and learning disability daytime support services, based in 22 buildings replaced with eight centres, Stanbridge House, pictured, will no longer be used to host day services.

Instead day service users will be sent to Redlands. The changes are due to come into force in August.

Twyford resident Linda Bran, who regularly goes to Stanbridge House, got in touch with the Banbury Guardian after day service users had to go to Redlands for two days following water problems at Stanbridge House.

She told the paper that at Stanbridge House day service users were served a hot meal and had use of an on-site hairdresser, neither of which were available at Redlands during their visit, adding that Redlands was ‘unsuitable.’

She said: “There is nowhere you can get a hot meal, nowhere you can get our hair done and it is a shared room.

“If they move us to Redlands, we will be worse off.

“It is disgusting the way we are being treated.”

She added they were now refusing to go to Redlands.

“It is completely the wrong place to put us,” she said.

Mrs Bran has been housebound since the death of her husband around one year ago.

“The people at Stanbridge House have helped me an awful lot.

“The staff and the people that run the transport are fantastic. I have no complaints at all,” she said.

OCC held a public consultation into the changes to adult day services from November last year. But Mrs Bran said she felt the service users had not been kept informed.

She said: “Why didn’t someone come down to see us or have a meeting with us?”

An Oxfordshire County Council spokesman: “The new service will be meeting a wide range of needs, different spaces for different people’s needs.

“Everybody with an assessed eligible care need will receive a service.

“We will be seeking strong input from service users throughout the process of setting up the new service prior to implementation.

“Oxfordshire County Council has a good track record in terms of services being ‘user-led’ – influenced by the people they serve.

“Transport will be available.

“People who are eligible for transport will be supported.

“People who don’t have that eligibility can choose to purchase it if they wish.”