Care Crisis

RESIDENTS of a nursing home at East Preston which closes next month are the latest victims of a crisis in caring in West Sussex.

The worsening situation, which has seen well over 1,000 nursing home beds lost in the county in the past couple of years, has now forced the owners of Seacroft, Sea Lane, to shut down their 16-bed home.

The decision was all the more painful for managing director Paul Renshaw, who is chief executive of a West Sussex forum of private care providers.

He blamed under-funding by the state, and spiralling red tape and regulations, for the closure of the home, which has lost its parent company more than 300,000 over the past few months.

And Mr Renshaw warned the crisis would deepen unless there was swift action from the government to boost funding to social services in counties like West Sussex, so that nursing home fees could be increased to more realistic levels.

The shortage of nursing home places, he pointed out, was already having a knock-on effect on acute beds in West Sussex hospitals.

Social services had a waiting list for 158 people who had been assessed as needing nursing home care, but was unable to fund them.

Of those, said Mr Renshaw, 117 were filling hospital beds and around 40 more were waiting at home.

Find out more in the Gazette, August 30, and have your say in the Littlehampton Today vote.