Bradford District Care Trust ends mental health care contract

11:00am Thursday 12th July 2012 in News Photograph of the Author By Claire Lomax

Funding cuts for frontline mental health services have forced a local NHS Trust to terminate its contract with Bradford Council.

Bradford District Care Trust has served notice to end the Section 75 Agreement with Bradford Council to provide adult social care mental health services on behalf of the authority.

Bradford Council has cut its adult social care budget by £750,000 for 2012/2013, but had been unable to negotiate with the trust over where savings could be made, resulting in the contract being terminated.

Bradford Council will now have to decide whether it wants to re-tender the contract for adult social care services (housing support and wellbeing services) for people under the age of 65 with mental health needs, or bring the service back in-house.

The Council says it will consult with people who use mental health services, their carers, families, and staff, before making any decisions.

Both organisations say they will work together to make sure there is a smooth transition of services to maintain quality of care and to support staff affected by the changes.

Simon Large, chief executive of Bradford District Care Trust said: “This decision has not been taken lightly and we are disappointed that we are unable to take the agreement forward.

“The agreement is legally binding and clearly lays out the standards required for mental health and social care across Bradford. It also sets out responsibilities for funding this care in a difficult economic climate. The Council has cut funds by 21 per cent to frontline mental health services over the last 12 months.

“We have not been able to reach agreement with the Council on how these savings will be made. It is therefore necessary to hand back management of these services to our partner in keeping with the terms of the agreement.

“Partnership working is still important to us and we are clear that the ending of this agreement should not signal the end of joint working.”

Councillor Amir Hussain, Bradford Council’s executive member for adult services, said: “We will work closely with the care trust, service-users and their families to make sure the transfer is as smooth as it can be, and those affected by the changes are supported and kept informed about the transfer plans.”

Comments(10)

flithergirl says...
11:30am Thu 12 Jul 12

If you are under 65 with mental health needs, please tell us if you have been approached by the Council for your opinion!

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checkcheque says...
3:46pm Thu 12 Jul 12

The annual salary of their newly appointed medical director is £120,000 plus.

In these austere times when Patients and Public will be affected by the cuts in health & public service budgets how can such a large salary (plus pension benefits) be justified????

btw when when did we start paying doctors the same as dodgy city bankers????

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checkcheque says...
4:11pm Thu 12 Jul 12

How many directors are there at Bradford District Care Trust, earning more than £80,000 per year?
Can they justify such high 'fat cat' salaries?
Will they demonstrate their moral compass and make their salaries fairer?
Who pays their salaries.... well, its us poorer taxpayers!!!

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checkcheque says...
4:14pm Thu 12 Jul 12

How long is the notice period for ending the Section 75 Agreement?

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Steve30d says...
6:17pm Thu 12 Jul 12

checkcheque wrote:
The annual salary of their newly appointed medical director is £120,000 plus.

In these austere times when Patients and Public will be affected by the cuts in health & public service budgets how can such a large salary (plus pension benefits) be justified????

btw when when did we start paying doctors the same as dodgy city bankers????
Know a physically disabled lady in an different area of the country. She wasn't too happy with the (social) care her social workers were arranging for her, so she tried to arrange to employ a carer directly, under the personal budget scheme that's supposed to be trialled there. 1st attempt involved asking some of her friends if they'd be happy being employed as carers for her, and several were . But SWs blocked that- "she already knew them so that would be discriminatory". So she went to her local job centre and the job center was prepared to find and vet someone local who would be able to come in for a few hours a week. Her SWs found out, and blocked it and told her she couldn't do any of that, as she didn't understand the anti-discrimination policies /*They* were the only ones who could chose who could be her carer, and if she didn't stop trying to bypass their control over who did the social care for her, they'd insist it were medical care she needed, and she'd end up a care home, as she clearly didn't know what was best for herself. It all seems to bullying using pretexts of red tape, and actively preventing what despite greater care social care hours, would probably be cheaper. And it make me very suspicious about conflicts of interests being involved when care firms have contracts with clauses that in practice mean they'll be preferentially sent work, even if there are sound reasons why others should be getting it. I really do hope this isn't the case with Bradford District Care Trust, and that transition goes smoothly but given the apparent nature of council contracts it wouldn't surprise me if it don't.

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wasthatthatguy says...
10:35am Sat 14 Jul 12

Is this about the Council wanting the NHS Trust to pay? And, the NHS Trust wanting the Council to pay? But, regardless of that, we, the long suffering tax payers, pay either and or both ways!

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Patrick Bateman says...
11:00am Sat 14 Jul 12

In a nutshell: The Trust says it can no longer run the service at the required standard from what Bradford Council pays it so they've dumped the whole thing back in the council's lap. The next question is can the council provide the same level of service expected of the Trust when factoring in the budget cut they proposed? Hardly likely.

Solution: do what the council do best - take the easy way out and put the service out to competitive tender and let a private company provide the service (and let them worry about the costs).

Probable result: poorer services, redundancies, arguably less accountability and a degeneration in the overall care for people with mental health problems in the district.

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wasthatthatguy says...
6:34pm Sat 14 Jul 12

What sort of jiggery pokery is this? What is the NHS Care Trust going to do if it doesn't do mental health work for the Council? Both of them being "partners" employed by the Government. Some sort of mind games going on here?

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wasthatthatguy says...
9:16pm Sat 14 Jul 12

Which is the "wrong part" of the Government? The NHS or the Local Authority?

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wasthatthatguy says...
8:21am Sun 15 Jul 12

wttg reckons the NHS Care Trust and their "partners" the Council are both playing mind games with the Government. The NHS Trust tells the Council it can't do the job for the amount of money the Council can pay. And, the Council tells the Government, that is because you aren't giving us enough money. There's only one thing for it. The Government will have to send Eric Pickles back to Bradford to knock the Council's and NHS Trust's heads together.

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