21 rooms empty in West Berkshire Council care homes

Council operates around 150 rooms across the district

TWENTY-ONE rooms in West Berkshire Council care homes are empty on an average night, it has been revealed.

This accounts for around 14 per cent of all rooms in council care homes across the district.

At the council’s executive meeting on Thursday, February 13, Owen Jeffery (Lib Dem, Thatcham Central) questioned whether more could be done to get the room use closer to capacity.

He said: “Can we do a piece of work on finding a better utilisation of those empty spaces?

“It seems to me we’re missing a trick in being able to use our homes close to 100 per cent, rather than spending money on putting people in other locations.”

The council currently operates four care homes across the district – Birchwood and Willows Edge in Newbury, Notrees in Kintbury and Walnut Close in Thatcham – with around 150 rooms in total.

The figure was revealed by executive member for adult social care Graham Bridgman, who said there were a number of reasons for the vacancies.

Mr Bridgman said: “You’ve got to interrogate the numbers to find out why the bedrooms are empty.

“Five of the rooms at Willows were coming back into use during this timescale because there had been a burst pipe or leaky boiler. They were back in use, but they needed time to get people into them.

“Then of course you have times when regrettably a room ceases to be used because unfortunately the occupant dies, so therefore you have a period between a death and that room being used again. So it’s not true to say that at all times, 21 rooms in the system aren’t being used – it’s an average.

“I’m fully in agreement with you that I’d like to see us utilising the spaces in our own care homes and it’s certainly part of the modernising of social care.

“I’d like to have 100 per cent occupancy, but it will never happen.”