Special care help for elderly
WORK is finally to start on replacing a Newsome care home which closed four years ago.
Kirklees councillors and contractors will be at Castle Grange next Tuesday to kick-start a major scheme.
They will launch the third of four new residential care homes to be built by Kirklees as part of its multi-million- pound programme to modernise and improve care services for older people.
The council's Cabinet member for social services, Clr Dennis Hullock, will perform the official sod-cutting for the new home, on the site of the former Castle Grange home at Ing Lane.
The new facility will be one of four state-of-the-art modern care homes for older people being built over the next year in a £10m investment in specialist residential care across Kirklees.
Work has already started on two of the other three homes, Claremont at Heckmondwike and Moorlands Grange at Netherton.
These will provide care for people recovering after being in hospital, together with specialist care assessment and some long-stay residential facilities. Each homes will have 40 en suite rooms.
These will be the first en suite facilities ever provided in council-run care homes.
Clr Hullock said: "The start of the project at Newsome is another landmark in the council's commitment to provide care of the highest quality and with a wide choice for older people.
"All the homes being built go beyond the minimum national standards.
"They are an important part of the wider programme to transform services for older people in Kirklees for many years to come."
Keith Smith, assistant director for community care services, said: "The focus of the wider modernisation programme is to do everything we can to support people living independently in their own homes for as long as possible, with high-quality residential care being there when they need it."
He added: "In the last five years there has been significant re-investment in the service.
"Households receiving intensive home care have more than doubled over the same period, with over 800 people now receiving high- level care at home.
"The service issues more than 17,000 items of equipment each year to help older people live at home.
"New support services mean older people can often return home from a stay in hospital quicker than previously."
Castle Grange opened in 1968, with 31 beds for elderly people. It closed in 2001 and has since been badly vandalised.
