East Lothian's most vulnerable missing thousands of…

East Lothian's most vulnerable missing thousands of hours of care each week

Shortages in carers have left East Lothian 's most vulnerable residents missing out on thousands of hours of care each week.

A new report on the state of elderly care provision across the county has revealed gaps of hundreds of hours in home care in each ward.

And it found that the biggest shortage of care was in the east, with nearly 300 hours of care unmet every week in North Berwick and Dunbar.

The report to East Lothian Integration Joint Board called for community consultations to be launched to look at each ward area and the biggest issues they face as part of plans to develop care services locally.

Board members agreed to support the consultation across the wards to identify local challenges in community provision.

They were told that work on re-provisioning services had identified two main issues in East Lothian - firstly that intermediate care provision (including care at home) is not sufficient and secondly an inequity in access to care that needed to be addressed.

The report broke down each ward by the number of people aged over 75, care home beds, care at home hours provided and its shortfall.

It found that there was an over provision of care home beds in the county, despite there being none in Preston, Seton Gosford.

It said: "The board subgroup previously considered the potential solutions to address these issues. However, these cannot be progressed without consultation and engagement with the community who should be given their own opportunity to contribute to the solutions."

The consultation will be carried out over 12 weeks.

The breakdown of elderly provision in East Lothian revealed:

Musselburgh

Population over 75 yrs - 1,700;

Care home beds - 112;

Care at home hours - 2,304hrs (additional unmet 211hrs)

Preston, Seton, Gosford

Population over 75 yrs - 1,671;

Care home beds - 0;

Care at home hours - 1,170 hrs (unmet 202hrs)

Tranent, Wallyford and Macmerry

Population over 75 yrs - 1,597;