Friends join forced to save care home

A group of friends have formed a campaign group against the proposed closure of a care home in West Cumbria.

As part of Cumbria County Council’s attempts to reform the way in which it delivers care services to the public, Richmond Park in Workington is to close along with Woodlands at Distington and Park Lodge in Aspatria.

Relatives of residents have come together to form the Friends of Richmond Park group and they hope to convince the local authority to make a u-turn on its decision.

Under the council’s existing plans, residents from the home will be transferred to a new extra-care housing development in Workington and improvements would be made to the dementia units at Inglewood in Wigton and the Parkside care home in Maryport.

The friends group’s which is made up of Lynne Harkness, Alison Roberts, Barbara Hemingway, Carole Local, Maggie Bober, Ken Congdon and Mike Graham are attempting to gather information which proves that the transfer of residents is unnecessary.

“We are rallying the troops to see what we can do in relation to working with Cumbria County Council to prevent the closure happening,” Ms Local, whose mother is a Richmond Park resident, told the Times and Star.

The group will present a 6,000 signature petition to the council at a cabinet meeting on February 9th and the consultation period for proposals is set to end on February 14th.

Richmond Park care home is hosting coffee mornings on both the fourth and eighth of February and homes the public and local councillors turn out to see what the home has to offer for themselves.

The group is also involved in a range of fund raising activities as it hopes to raise enough money to redecorate the home’s dementia units.

A petition to save the Park Lodge home in Aspatria has also been started by a separate group of campaigners.

Posted by the Paying for Care editorial team