A CROSSFLATTS care facility is to be permanently closed.

Thompson Court, in Morton Lane, supported people as they continued with their recovery after being discharged from hospital.

But Bradford Council's executive has approved the permanent closure of the site, together with a similar facility at Norman Lodge, in Odsal, Bradford.

The council had announced earlier this year that the sites were being mothballed, with residents being gradually moved into other facilities or helped to return to their homes.

An update was given to executive members on the intermediate care facilities.

A third, similar facility, Woodward Court in Allerton, has already been closed and the building sold at auction.

A report to the executive suggested there should be greater emphasis on a ‘Home First’ model, to help older people stay at home with more responsive services, rather than requiring residential care.

Staff and funds should be directed to achieving this rather than maintaining the larger homes, members were told.

Iain MacBeath, strategic director for adult social care and health, assured members that staff from the homes would be redeployed elsewhere in adult services.

He said: “There has been an investment in facilities that allow people to go back home.

“When people are in hospital, their preference is to go back to their homes where possible.”

The report said: “System partners agreed to the mothballing of Thompson Court care facility in Crossflatts from January 2024 due to under occupancy, to see if the system could cope with a smaller number of beds. This does not appear to have affected performance around the requirement for short-stay beds.

“Due to positive changes made to other care pathways since then to enable ‘Home First’, occupancy at Norman Lodge care facility in Odsal has dropped to around 50 per cent of available beds so partners agreed to the mothballing of that facility to assess system resilience.

“It closed to new admissions from February 19 and system performance is manageable, with few people waiting for onward care packages.

“The decision to close Woodward Court and the recommendation to permanently close Thompson Court and Norman Lodge will save approximately £4.1m in 2024-25 from the adult social care budget and will be used to mitigate existing departmental budget pressures.”

Council leader Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe said: “These were not long-term residents in the homes – they were people coming out of hospital who needed more time before moving back home.”