4:00pm Sunday 5th July 2009
CARE workers are to lobby councillors next week in protest at Bolton Council’s plans to axe more than half of them as part of a bid to save £1 million.
The protest, which will take place outside the meeting of the full council at Bolton Town Hall on Wednesday, has been organised by trade unions the GMB and Unison.
They say plans to cut the number of jobs from 250 to 120 will see the quality of service dip, a claim refuted by town hall bosses.
Bernie Gallagher, Unison Bolton Metro branch secretary, said: “We sometimes struggle to get hold of our elected members so we have to resort to turning up at where we know they will be in attendance.”
The unions are also asking members to write to their MP and council chief executive Sean Harriss and are planning to protest outside the council’s next Executive meeting, on July 20.
In May, The Bolton News reported how the council was planning to streamline the way it delivers care to some of the most vulnerable adults in the borough.
The changes include merging the management of its Elderly Mental Illness Home Care (EMI) and Short Term Assessment and Support (STAS) services, which deal with people suffering from dementia and other such illnesses.
Paul Hutchinson, convenor for the GMB, said: “We believe that older residents of Bolton deserve a quality service where the residents don’t have a different care worker on every visit.
“Sadly, Bolton Council has taken the view that the current quality service is too expensive, the proposal to cut 50 per cent of front line care staff’s jobs can only bring less care to the elderly.”
But John Rutherford, director of adult and community services at Bolton Council, said: “There will be no change in the level of service we provide. This is about looking at how we can provide a service which is as good as, if not better, whilst making the cuts we need to.”
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