Adult care centres under review

A deadline for closing three adult day care centres in Cornwall has been scrapped.

Cornwall Council has instead set up a panel to examine how the services could be provided in the future.

The units under threat of closure are Morley Tamblyn in Liskeard, Blantire in St Austell and Murdoch Trevithick in Redruth.

It costs the authority £6m a year to provide services for adults with learning disabilities.

'Improve not remove'

The council said the facilities were under review as part of a modernisation of the service it offers to adults with learning disabilities.

Nick Fripp, who is in charge of adult learning disability services for the council and the Cornwall Partnership NHS Trust, said: "Our aim for these services is to improve them and absolutely not to remove them."

The single-issue panel is to look into the possibility of providing smaller more local services, instead of having several big centres with large catchment areas.

Mr Fripp said nothing would change until "suitable alternatives were in place".

Joan Gage chairs a carers group in Redruth, many of whose members use the Murdoch Trevithick centre.

She said: "It is an essential form of respite care for parents and carers that have been caring for most of their lives."