Liverpool City Council is to block-book care home places in advance in a bid to streamline systems. It is hoped that the new agreement with 11 care homes across the city will help people to be given nursing home places more quickly than at present. Until recently, the council only paid the care homes when the beds were required. Councillor Jeremy Chowings, Liverpool¹s executive member for social care and health, stressed that the money to block book the beds had already been budgeted for. “This arrangement allows places to be made available more quickly for people moving from hospitals into specialist care, or for people who need to move from living independently to having support,” Cllr Chowings said. However Labour Councillor Paul Brant described the agreement as “a drop in the ocean”. “This makes an appalling situation slightly better,” Cllr Brant said. “We are still going to see care homes closing and a bed crisis looming later in the year. There is nothing in this proposal which will stop this happening

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