Social services bosses are spending £900 a week to put a disabled woman in a care home in Hampshire - when she could be looked after just minutes from her home.>

Mum irate over care of disabled daughter

Picture shows Mrs Balsdon with daughter Sarah and son Matthew

SOCIAL services bosses are spending £900 a week to put a disabled woman in a care home in Hampshire - when she could be looked after just minutes from her home.

Severely disabled Sarah Balsdon, 20, was set to take a place in the new Cotswold Cottage home, ten minutes' walk from her parents' home in Southfield Drive, Hazlemere, when it opened in March.

But county health bosses cancelled the move, claiming they could not afford to pay for the five beds which have been set aside for severely disabled residents at the £440,000 purpose-built home.

The home also has spaces for two adults with learning difficulties who are not disabled.

A spokesman for the Fremantle Trust, which manages Cotswold Cottage, said: "It would not be cost-effective to employ sufficient staff to look after severely disabled residents until all five places set aside for them are fully funded."

Miss Balsdon's mother Chris, 47, is now angry about having to travel more than 50 miles to visit her disabled daughter, while rooms in the purpose-built home are empty.

The mother-of-two said: "At Easter we thought Sarah would be going to Cotswold Cottage. We even took her bed there. She'd chosen the room she wanted, it was absolutely ideal."

Miss Balsdon - who is wheelchair bound and cannot talk - was to have the cost of her care met jointly by Buckinghamshire County Council social services and Buckinghamshire Health Authority.

A council spokesman said: "While social services is ready to pay its share for these places, the health authority is unable to give the go-ahead on its part of the funding."

A spokesman for the health authority explained: "Patients who could best benefit from going to Cotswold Cottage are not considered to be among those people in greatest need of health authority funding at the moment."

In a desperate bid to get Miss Balsdon the care she needs, her mother reluctantly notified social services she would be evicting her daughter - to force the council to house her in full-time care.

She said: "We only took this step to get Sarah into full-time care as a last resort, after her allowance for respite care was cut by 30 per cent. That was the final straw - without respite care it's very difficult for us to cope as a family."

Social services could not find a suitable place for Miss Balsdon in Bucks, so it is paying to have her cared for 58 miles away at High Hurlands Care Home, near Liphook, Hampshire.

Mrs Balsdon said: "It's crazy - it costs £900 a week to have Sarah looked after in Hampshire - it would cost less than £600 a week at Cotswold Cottage."

The county council is now paying the full cost of Miss Balsdon's care. Under the original agreement with the health authority, the county's social services department would only have picked up the bill for half the cost of her accommodation - just £300 a week.

However, the county would face a combined bill of almost £1,500 a week if it jointly funded all five places at the care home.

Mrs Balsdon said: "This situation is very difficult for us as a family. Visiting Sarah in Hampshire is a day-long trip."

"We can't talk to Sarah on the telephone because she can't talk. She's been sent 50 miles away when there's a perfectly good place for her here."

Social services and Buckinghamshire Health Authority are meeting today to discuss the funding of care at Cotswold Cottage.

Comment: See opinion section

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.