MP slams decision to cease funding Melton mental health services

Dozens of carers have been left devastated by the news that the four days-a-week sessions at Gloucester House will finish at the end of July because Age UK Leicestershire and Rutland cannot afford to keep them going without additional financial help.

Mr Duncan, who said the situation was ‘a mess which needed sorting out’. sympathised with the dementia sufferers who will lose the social interaction from the group meetings and the carers who gained respite from looking after them.

He said: “Closing the services at Gloucester House would be a total false economy, pushing people into full time care at much higher costs and stretching carers beyond breaking point.

“This is a mess of the CCG’s own making – it is their responsibility to sort it out.”

Mr Duncan said he had spoken at length to both the ELR CCG and to Age UK to make his feelings known about the issue.

He is also liasing with Charnwood MP Ed Argar after the ELR CCG made a decision to end its funding for similar mental health services at Birstall.

Mr Duncan is calling on the organisation to reverse its decision or identify another funding source.

He added: ‘This has been a highly unsatisfactory process and the CCG are in no doubt about how I and local people feel about this.

“Claiming this is social care, not clinical care, might be a useful way for the CCG to pass the costs onto someone else’s budget, but the real costs will be borne by those who rely on the service unless they get a grip of this.”