Commenting on Staffordshire County Council’s announcement this morning that a "consultation event" managed by Agencia will take place with residents and staff of care homes, Michael Fabricant says: "It is important that all users are consulted on an individual basis including users of day centres which are also for the chop.

"I have already heard that residents of residential homes are to be interviewed 15 at a time. This is not good enough. There are sensitive and personal issues that need to be talked about. Going through the motions and talking to residents as a group just isn’t adequate.

"The ‘consultation event’ – whatever THAT means! – should collect real information for county councillors to discuss in detail and not merely be what I suspect is just a box ticking exercise so that the County can claim it has consulted everyone then still go ahead with the closures to the original timescale."

In it’s media release, Staffordshire County Council says:-

The county council is writing to all residents and users of its care homes for people with learning difficulties and physical disabilities, and also to associated members of staff, to set out how they will be fully consulted with over the next three months.

There are currently 200 residents and other service users in these ten homes and 450 members of staff. The consultation with residents and other service users will be arranged at arms length from the county council by the specialist independent consultation agency Agencia.

Over the next two months, a consultation event will take place with care home residents and their families for each of the 10 homes. Depending on the individual, consultation may happen within a group forum setting or on an individual basis.