A Bordon day care centre that looks after the mentally frail and patients with Alzheimer's disease has been saved from closure.
The Chase Day Centre, which is based at the Chase Hospital in Conde Way, will be run by the charity Age Concern from April this year.
The charity will take over the contract from Hampshire Primary Care Trust, which caused distress when it announce
d before Christmas it would no longer fund the centre.
Pressure from carers, day centre staff, councillors and the Bordon Post helped to prompt Hampshire County Council to take action to stop its closure, and an agreement with Age Concern was confirmed on Monday.
Pauline Barker, of Forest Road, said it was splendid news for her and for every other carer who uses the centre.
Her husband Lex, who has Alzheimer’s, is served by the Chase on Mondays and Fridays.
If the centre had shut, it would have forced her to place him into a nursing home, so she was delighted with the outcome.
Mrs Barker said: “It is fantastic for myself and for everybody else.
“We have been fighting away and fighting away, because Monday and Friday is my lifeline with my husband, otherwise I don’t have a respite.
“If it had shut down I would unfortunately have had to put him in a nursing home, with great courage I must add.”
Now the centre is staying open, she hopes her husband can be admitted on Wednesdays, to give her a chance to help as a computer administrator at the Forest Community Centre on that day.
“It does my husband good to get out of the home.
“The staff there are excellent – they are professional, very keen and supportive and my husband likes it there. To put him into a nursing home would have been terrible. I am just elated for me and for other carers.”
She added: “Thank you to the Post as well for your help in this.”
Hampshire County Council’s member for Whitehill, Bordon and Lindford, Adam Carew, worked behind the scenes to help secure the Chase Day Centre’s future.
He said: “This is fantastic news.
“We have all been extremely concerned about the future of Chase Day Centre and I am delighted at the result.
“The Chase Day Centre is a life-line for elderly mentally frail patients and their families and we can all breathe a huge sigh of relief that Age Concern have stepped in to save it.”
It is hoped the centre can now extend the number of people who are treated there.
Cllr Carew said: “I am told that the Chase will continue as normal with 10 places offered to people with Alzheimer’s three days a week. At present the numbers of elderly mentally frail attending have been halved as no one seemed certain as to its future, but I am assured that this will now pick up.
“I have asked whether Day Centre jobs will be safe and I gather staff will be offered the option of carrying on under TUPE arrangements, where they are given the option to end their contracts or continue under a new contract.
“Clearly we only have PCT funding until March 2009 at present but I am assured that the county council will work with the NHS to see funding levels are maintained.”
