Backlash as care funding reaches a crossroads

From May 31, Crossroads Care respite centre, in Hughenden Road, will no longer receive funding from East Sussex County Council (ESCC).

Hundreds of residents in Bexhill, Hastings and Rother who are currently visited each week by Crossroads staff must instead seek care from private companies invited by ESCC to tender for the contract.

But Wendy Matthews, of Turkey Road, who has been using Crossroads Care for 19 years, said the change will have a massive impact on her disabled daughter Claire, 31.

Wendy, who uses Crossroads for 3.5 hours each week, said: "Claire has quite a bond with our care worker from Crossroads. They click together. It's a very personal thing.

"The service I get is so valuable to me. I have the same lady every time. I worry that won't happen any more, that continuity of service.

"The office have absolute empathy for carers. I have had agency staff before and they are not always so helpful. People who come in from outside are not always thinking of the people they leave behind."

The organisation's future is uncertain, but Robert Brown MBE, chair of Crossroads Care in East Sussex, confirmed plans to keep the day centre in Hughenden Road open, though this would no longer be free.

Allegations that the changeover was a costcutting measure were denied by David Zwirek, communications manager for ESCC, who said the council will spend the same amount of money on respite care.

He said: "The aim is to provide choice, fairness and increased respite for carers and value for money for the people of East Sussex.

He added that all Crossroads staff would be offered a transfer to a new care provider under existing terms of employment: "as long as they are outside the Crossroads' agreed area under the new scheme.

"We will work work with individual carers to address any concerns they have."

Robert Brown said: "We hope that none of the carers and support workers will be made redundant.

"But Crossroads will still be operating in different ways and for those that want to stay we will try and find them work."