Carers in Hammersmith and Fulham to lose support centre

Carers and community groups are hit as a flagship Conservative borough seeks to ‘do more with less’

For 12 years, Margaret Turley has known where to go in a crisis. Eighteen months ago, when the 26-year-old learning-disabled son she cares for developed epilepsy and began going blind, Turley headed for the Princess Royal Trust Hammersmith and Fulham Carers Centre.

“You’re among people who know what carers do,” she says of the Hammersmith Road centre in west London. “I can come in here just because I’ve had a horrendous day.” The centre provides advice and peer support, and runs a Department of Health-funded programme, Caring with Confidence, offering free training for carers who want to develop their caring skills.

However, in two weeks’ time, the centre is to close, depriving Turley and 600 other carers of their lifeline. Its contract with the Tory-run council has not been renewed and, in a separate issue, its council lease had expired and it regarded alternative accommodation offered by the council as unsuitable. Last week, campaigners staged a protest at the town hall.

During the nationwide Carers Week this week, Turley and the rest of the UK’s 6 million carers should be applauding the services that support them, not mourning their loss. Carers save the nation an estimated £87bn a year by keeping people out of hospital or residential care.

Research published on Monday by Caring with Confidence highlights how carers struggle to manage their roles while coping with work and family life: almost half of those questioned say they cannot get access to training opportunities that would support their role.

Hammersmith and Fulham is a flagship Conservative-controlled borough, from its annual 3% council tax cut for the past three years to its maximum four-star rating from the Audit Commission.

But such plaudits come at a cost. Campaigners failed last year in their legal challenge to force the council to lower charges for home care services. For carers, the council says it wants to broaden the service it provides to only 1,000 out of the 11,500 carers in the borough. It drew up a new contract encouraging bidders to provide support in different locations, rather than at a single centre, to achieve its vision of a network of “community hubs”.

Although the carers centre did bid for the contract, the council says the process was uncompetitive and the centre failed to meet its requirements. It can bid again once the contract is re-tendered later this summer. Meanwhile, social services will provide support to carers. Joe Carlebach, the councillor responsible for community services, says the changes will “make sure more valued carers get the support they need and deserve”.

Carers’ campaigners , however, ask how they can they draw up another bid with no staff and no base. Pat Williams, who cares for her disabled son and runs the Caring with Confidence sessions, says: “It’s a fait accompli – get us out of the building, don’t give us the contract, and run the organisation down.”

Carers are not alone in being targeted. At a nearby council-owned Victorian block called Palingswick House, 22 community groups, including Refugee Forum, face eviction. The building is part of the council’s “asset management strategy”. It says Palingswick is riddled with problems and is inaccessible to the disabled – and it will consult on selling it off this summer.

Many buildings in community use have been deemed unsuitable by the council, and it hopes groups will transfer to the forthcoming hubs. “Where organisations need to move from one building to another, we will do everything we can to smooth the transition,” says council leader Stephen Greenhalgh. “Making better use of our buildings and selling sites we don’t need is universally accepted as a better option than simply cutting our budgets and grants.” It is a strategy that has saved the council £20m in four years.

Greenhalgh rejects suggestions that his policies penalise the third sector and make a mockery of the Tory’s “big society” concept. “Those who would rather put their heads in the sand and ignore the debt crisis facing the nation risk letting down the people they serve. The pot is getting smaller – we all have to find ways to do more with less,” he says.

At the carers centre, Turley disagrees: “Of course David Cameron wants to get the country back in shape, but you can’t do that by hurting other people.”