'Handle with Care' an article in the 'Guardian' on Wednesday, 8th September 2010 highlighted the effect the announced cuts would have on Clyst Caring Friends' services.
Pam Edmonds, 88, has been attending a day care centre near Exeter twice a week for seven years. It has been a lifeline ever since spinal problems left her unable to walk. A resident of Broadclyst, a small village a few miles outside Exeter, Edmonds who lives alone, was isolated until she was referred to the day centre. 'I couldn't go out on my own ever,' she says.
Attending the Clyst Centre has revolutionised her social life, Volunteer drivers collect her and take her home, and in addition to the quizzes, playing cards and games, a highlight is the hot meal. 'The dinner's always very good,' she says.
The centre, located in a building attached to Pinhoe and Broadclyst GP surgery, is run by Clyst Caring Friends, a charity set up at the request of local doctors to help bring patients into the surgery and reduce the hours GPs were having to spend making home visits. It quickly expanded to provide a range of day care services, including chiropody. But funding cuts mean that the centre's future is precarious.
Until now, Devon county council's adult social care has funded the 24 places. But cuts mean the charity is faced with a £6,000 (20%) shortfall. As a result, Carole Traer, co-ordinator of Clyst Caring Friends, has already reduced her hours from five to three days a week as she fears that unless the centre gets more support, it will have to shut in a couple of years with detrimental knock-on effects for other services.
'A lot of what we do is carer support,' she says. 'Without that, the people who are caring for their spouses at home would never have a day off.'
The charity's financial problems are symptomatic of the scale of cuts faced by public services. Many organisations are already feeling the effect of the summer's emergency budget, when initial cuts of £6.2m were made. And many more are bracing themselves for next month's comprehensive spending review as the government sets out to tackle a £156bn deficit. The Office for Budget Responsibility has calculated that more than 600,000 jobs in public services will be lost by 2016.
The article goes on to discuss the cuts and highlights other effects these cuts with have on adult social care as a whole.