Derbyshire County Council’s Cabinet Member for Adult Care shares ‘personal elements’ in his bid to reshape adult social care

Derbyshire County Council’s adult care chief has told how he is not immune to the ‘personal elements’ involved during the authority’s ongoing efforts and challenges to reshape adult social care for residents in the face of changing demands and financial restraints.

The Reform UK-controlled council’s Cabinet Member for Adult Care, Cllr Joss Barnes, has weathered protests during very difficult decisions involving the attempted sale of eight council care homes and ongoing plans to strike a deal with a care provider to take over the running of the council’s Ada Belfield care home, in Belper.

But Cllr Barnes has been quick to offer assurances that support for all the authority’s care home residents and affected staff continues and remains in place while positive discussions are still underway to secure Ada Belfield’s future.

He said: “I am very far from being immune from the personal elements of adult care. This is why I took on the role because I want to see a difference.”

Despite efforts to seal a deal for a single provider to take over eight former council care homes for the elderly, the plan collapsed leading to the eventual closure of the homes.

But Cllr Barnes explained the council was there every step of the way supporting residents and families while facilitating their safe transfer to other facilities.

And after describing current discussions to secure the future of Ada Belfield care home’s transfer to a care provider as ‘positive’, Cllr Barnes has outlined the financial challenges faced by councils and the changing landscape of adult social care needs while sharing his own personal experiences.

He revealed how his brother was born disabled, unable to walk and with non-verbal communication and he has seen the strain for his parents and family and the need for respite and how services have struggled with less Government funding.

Cllr Barnes, who has visited every care home, added: “Personal life experience trumps anything learned out of a textbook at university.

“People want to be listened to and helped and people who do not have the life experience may not have the heart for it or the empathy to understand what’s going on in people’s heads.”

He explained the move to sell care homes follows a decline in demand for traditional residential care as people choose to stay in their homes for as long as possible and by the time they need to go into care they need more intensive support, such as nursing care, which the council cannot legally provide.

The council also offered alternative work arrangements for staff affected by the closed eight care homes and staff were moved to different locations or  absorbed into different roles while some considered retirement and redundancy, but with regards to Ada Belfield, staff will be expected to be transferred to a new care provider.

Cllr Barnes has said that supporting older and disabled people is still one of the council’s highest priorities and it is absolutely committed to maintaining and developing quality residential and home care in Derbyshire.

He is also concerned that the council needs to provide more support for specific needs like dementia due to an increasing number of adults developing the condition.

Cllr Barnes added: “We are moving towards keeping people at home for as long as possible and that’s a national thing and not just for Derbyshire because the numbers are increasing with more people wanting to stay at home and they are also living longer with an ageing population with different increasing needs and demands.

“The big push is prevention. If you strike early and stop people going into crisis that means they can stay at home and that saves us money in the long run and keeps the population healthy.

“It’s cost-effective to look after people in their own homes. You do not need a building, costs for food, electricity and staff.

“Legally, we do not have to provide residential care homes but we do have to ensure there is capacity for care.”

Cllr Barnes explained the council embraces its responsibility to keep supporting residents in need of care and to ensure they receive the right type of support and the authority will continue helping with costs for means-tested care for any residents looking to go into residential homes.

He added: “When we closed the eight care homes there was by that time only a small number of people scattered across the care homes and we moved them into better places up to Care Quality Commission standards and if there was an additional cost we covered that as part of our agreement.

“We recognised the stress of changes and moving and we took them to a new place for introductions and slowly introduced them and supported them afterwards with regular checks.”

Belper Together campaigners opposed to plans to sell the Ada Belfield care home have criticised the council for the delay since April to secure a new care provider for the operation and for what they claim has been a lack of communication with updates from the council.

But Cllr Barnes said there are many aspects to the planned sale of a commercial lease for the care home operation to a provider which need to be addressed while the council aims to keep the building and continue to run a library at the centre.

He also argued non-sensitive information has been shared with residents and staff as well as with Green Party Cllr Gez Kinsella who has been involved with the Belper Together campaign.

Belper Together campaigners have also raised concerns about the loss of community support beds (CSBs) at Ada Belfield care home which provide temporary care so people can leave hospital sooner and return home sooner easing the strain on the NHS.

But Cllr Barnes said: “CSBs are available elsewhere and they can be used and they are closer to a hospital. We are getting more people through CSBs and getting them quicker with a better arrangement and better results.

“We have increased the number of CSBs in Derbyshire and increased the number of people with over 900 per year and the length of time people are staying in there is being dramatically reduced and they are not going back into hospitals which is easing the burden on the NHS.”

Cllr Barnes explained that legally the council does not have a statutory duty to provide residential care homes but it does still operate four such facilities including Florence Shipley, at Heanor, Meadow View, at Darley Dale, Oakland Village, at Swadlincote, and Whitestones, at Chapel-en-le-Frith.

He also pointed out that the council’s responsibility for adult care involves not just elderly residents but also younger adults facing difficulties and disabilities in a tough financial climate with limited Government funding.

Cllr Barnes also explained how the council looks after carers who support friends, relatives and neighbours and described them as a ‘bedrock’ for the council.

New Labour Prime Minister Andy Burnham has expressed a desire to look at adult social care pay and training, the use of existing resources with a plan to introduce a fair pay arrangement for social care staff and a possible national care service while facing up to ‘difficult decisions’ that could mean possible tax rises to support the system.

But Cllr Barnes, who also represents the Dunston division of the Chesterfield district, argued that while adult care needs more Government funding this should be based on less ‘foreign spend’ by reining in an ‘astronomical’ foreign aid bill as opposed to raising taxes because ‘charity starts at home’.

He added that consideration should also be given to stricter immigration arguing that every pound paid supporting people coming into the UK is one pound taken away from elsewhere which is why he feels there is a ‘crisis’ in the UK.

Belper Together, which is opposed to the council’s decision to sell what campaigners referred to as the ‘flagship £11.5m’ Ada Belfield care home, has accused the council of privatising adult social care.

The Derbyshire branch of the UNISON union has also stated its preference has always been to avoid the privatisation of public services, and that efforts to secure a new care provider for Ada Belfield are ‘cold comfort’ for those affected by the eight closed homes.

The council’s former Conservative administration originally agreed to cease operating nine care homes in 2024 and to sell them to care providers – including Ada Belfield – while managing a multi-million pound budget deficit.

The eight care homes the former Conservative council agreed in November 2024 to stop operating and to sell and which have now closed include: Briar Close, at Borrowash; Castle Court, at Swadlincote; The Grange, at Eckington; Lacemaker Court, at Long Eaton; The Leys, at Ashbourne; New Bassett House, at Shirebrook; Rowthorne, at Swanwick; And Thomas Colledge House, at Bolsover.

Opposition Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green Party councillors had previously joined campaigners and concerned residents in a failed bid to stop the former Conservative council agreeing to sell the original eight care homes.

Derbyshire County Council has stated that these former care home properties will either be re-purposed for other uses by the authority or they will be sold.

The council’s former Conservative administration had argued there was a need to refocus adult care services by supporting more dementia patients and helping more people to stay at home due to what it claimed was a decline in demand for residential care.

Derbyshire County Council’s new Reform UK administration adopted the strategy and following the collapsed sale of eight of its care homes in December and their subsequent closure the authority confirmed in April that Ada Belfield is subject to negotiations with a care provider to take over the running of this facility.