Talks over Birch Tree bungalows closure
CRISIS talks between parents and health bosses planning to close specialist bungalows for adults with learning disabilities will be held tomorrow.
The meeting has been called to discuss Norfolk Primary Care Trust's controversial decision to close the fully-adapted bungalows at Birch Tree Close, which offer full-time and respite care.
Anger greeted news that the homes, along with another in Great Mans Way, Stoke Ferry, would be shut by early 2009. The PCT said the decision was in line with Government policy scrapping NHS "campus accommodation" nationwide.
Around 19 residents in Lynn and a further three in Stoke Ferry will be forced to move out and parents have not yet been told where their children will be sent.
The Birch Tree bungalows form part of Park View Resource Centre which opened in 1989 to provide adults with learning difficulties a "one-stop shop" where all their needs could be met under one roof. The centre itself is not part of the closure plan. The bungalows were specially designed to allow residents to live in a "family home" while receiving specialist care and they also provide vital respite care for families.
Retired consultant psychiatrist Dr Deb Chakraborti, who worked for years to develop the centre, has condemned the closure warning it could lead to "untold misery and suffering" for both residents and their carers.
North West Norfolk MP Henry Bellingham and former health authority chairman Roy Spencer have also spoken out against the move and urged the PCT to re-think its decision to follow the Government's lead to the letter. Residents at the home are soon to be individually assessed to establish what kind of care they will need.
Parents, many of whom feel they have so far been left in the dark, are expected to learn more at tomorrow's meeting, at the centre, off London Road.
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Weather for King's Lynn
Sunday 27 May 2012
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