The announcement of a new 20 bed care home for people with learning disabilities in Glasgow came as a surprise.
Late last year, the city council announced plans to put the service out to tender, with a tight deadline - it was to be operational by January 7th 2015.
There was barely time for a campaign group to launch a protest against the move before it was the tender was cancelled. The first week of the year came and went without the tender being awarded.
The objection from the Learning Disability Alliance Scotland was on the grounds that such a home seemed like a step backwards in this age of personalisation and self directed support.
LDAS, a coalition of disability charities, went further. Such group living, it said would be "a return to the dark ages". Developing a 20-bed care home, the organisation said, "is not an alternative way of looking after people with learning disabilities in the community. It is a return to the old days of large segregated services that have the smell of Lennox Castle and other large hospital based services."
Strong words, but it doesn't appear that they were the decisive factor in ending these plans for now.
Glasgow says returning to the institutional model was not the idea, but those in the new home would be people already in residential care. The Council still insist the new service was needed, to cater for a small group of adults with learning disabilities, many of them 60 or over but with needs too complex for standard residential care homes for the elderly to deal with.
At present there are a number of citizens in such a position who couldn't live at home without the more or less full time attentions of a district nurse, and who end up in residential care outside the Glasgow where it is harder to monitor the quality of care they receive.
But whether or not the council had qualms about the approach, the deciding factor appears to have been legal concern about the tender itself. I understand there were companies who might have wished to bid for the work, but who weren't aware of the opportunity to tender. This could have exposed the council to claims about the fairness and openness of the process.
Despite the council's views, the exercise is unlikely to be repeated, as Glasgow wrestles with cuts and the integration of health and social care. LDAS, meanwhile is delighted. Coordinator Ian Hood said: "We are delighted that wiser heads at the councils have prevailed and decided not to go ahead with this proposal. A return to such large scale institutional living would have been disastrous for vulnerable people with learning disabilities."
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