Twickenham MP Backs Local Alzheimer's Campaign

2.41.59pm UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 22nd Oct 2007

Following the launching of a campaign by Paul Lamplugh to save Marble Lodge in St John's Hospital, Twickenham - a continuing care unit for Alzheimer's cases - Vincent Cable MP has joined the relatives' campaign.

Closure of the unit is looming because the local Primary Care Trust is no longer willing to pay the very high cost - £1,736 a week - demanded by the South West London Mental Health Trust (double the cost of most alternatives). The 14 patients would be moved to other care homes. The relatives are fighting the closure of the unit because it provides an exceptional quality of service for patients who are particularly challenging and there is no indication as to where the patients will go.

Vincent Cable said: "I feel strongly about this issue having support St John's Hospital and having not too long ago been invited to the opening of the multisensory room, which is now proposed to be closed. My late mother succumbed to Alzheimer's before she died and I came to appreciate the importance of sensitive care from specialists.

"The public will not understand that lying behind this planned closure is a dispute over costs between two bits of the NHS bureaucracy. The Primary Care Trust quite reasonably objects to paying twice the amount which it would pay if continuing care was bought from other providers in the private sector or the non-profit sector (like Abbeyfield). The Mental Health Trust, on the other hand, seems unable or unwilling to deal with the costs issue and seems indifferent to losing the patients. It seems more interested in selling off the land.

"From the point of view of the local community the position is very disappointing. We must avoid a situation where a very vulnerable group of elderly people are packed off to some unsuitable private care home, perhaps outside the Borough, and excellent facilities are just abandoned. I believe St John's has a future as a facility for the elderly mental ill. But we first need some answers as to what the different bits of the NHS are planning."