Whitton Respite Centre Fights for Funding

12.40.29pm UTC (GMT +0000) Fri 16th Sep 2005

A packed meeting at Homelink, the Whitton centre for day respite care, on Monday heard Vincent Cable MP and Sir Graham Morgan, NHS boss in NW London (and part time Chiswick clergyman) appeal for better backing from funding agencies.

The Centre currently provides respite care during the day, four days a week, for 110 clients a week in the Whitton area. It has built up from scratch over 8 years and now has 40 voluntary workers as well as regular staff. But there are continuing difficulties in financing and this year Homelink was rejected by the borough's Direct Grant Scheme for having "excessive" reserves (though it was not warned by the Council that there would be a problem).

Vincent Cable MP, who has worked with Homelink over the eight years of its existence to attract new funding, and Sir Graham Morgan both made the same point: that centres like Homelink were now critical to the future of the NHS which is trying to save money by reducing the length of stay in hospital, relying on carers to take responsibility for relatives recuperating from illness.

Vincent Cable said: "At the moment there is a serious lack of joined up government. The NHS and the Council lean on carers and volunteers working for bodies like Homelink to perform an essential role which would cost a fortune if provided by themselves. Yet Homelink is consistently fighting for basic funding to keep going. It is time we had a more rational approach to the funding of social services."