Day Opportunities Strategy and Review

The consultation report can be viewed here

Following consideration by officers and members, Cabinet approved the Day Opportunities Strategy and approved the recommended option for Tricuro day centres below:

• All three Connect centres to remain open
• Moordown Plus centre to remain open
• Poole Plus centre to close with services relocated to Parkstone Connect
• Highcliffe, Wallisdown and Westbourne Plus sites to remain closed with services already relocated to nearby Connect centres

View details of the 6 March Cabinet meeting (Item 9 on the Agenda)

We want to hear from service users, their carers, families and friends, and from the wider community about:

• our draft Day Opportunities Strategy and
• proposed changes to the way that day opportunities are delivered, which include changes to day centres in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole.

BCP Council has recently carried out a review of the day opportunities available to residents with an eligible care need. The new draft Day Opportunities Strategy recommends that more services are delivered in community-based settings rather than the more traditional day centres (building-based services). This change would allow us to reduce the number of day centres, with some of the money being re-invested in improving services in the community and elsewhere.

The consultation will close on Friday 12 January 2024.

Have your say – Day Opportunities Strategy and Review –
Please click here to read an easy read version of the proposals and questionnaire

Please click here to read an easy read version of the day opportunities strategy

The term 'day opportunities' refers to a variety of activities available to people with an eligible care need. They can include social, educational, practical or physical activities as well as more specialist support such as counselling, physical therapy or help with personal care for those that need it. Traditionally day opportunities have been delivered in dedicated day centre buildings (building-based services) but more and more opportunities are now available in community settings such as community centres, village halls, leisure centres, colleges or cafes as well as outdoor settings such as parks or activity centres.

In 2022/23 we carried out a review of day opportunities in the BCP area and a new Day Opportunities Strategy was produced. The review and draft strategy were produced by a co-production group made up of people with lived experience, advocacy groups, providers of day opportunities, councillors and colleagues from neighbouring local authorities and NHS Dorset. Before we formally adopt this strategy we want to check that we have got it right.

One of the main recommendations of the draft strategy is making greater use of community-based day opportunities with less focus on building-based services. This means that we would need fewer day centres.

There are a number of providers operating day centres in the BCP area. Eight of these centres are operated by Tricuro, a local authority trading company that took over the operation of services previously run directly by the council*. Of these eight Tricuro day centres, there are five smaller 'Plus' centres and three larger 'Connect' centres:

• Highcliffe Plus
• Moordown Plus
• Poole Plus
• Wallisdown Plus
• Westbourne Plus
• Boscombe Connect
• Christchurch Connect
• Parkstone Connect

We are consulting on two proposals that have not been co-produced as part of the day opportunities strategy project but considered as part of the Council's review of its financial position :

Proposal 1:

Close the five Plus centres and move service users either to community-based services or to larger Connect centres. Three of these centres have not re-opened following the pandemic lockdown in 2020, with service users currently accessing services at nearby Connect centres.

Proposal 2:

Close all eight Tricuro centres and move all service users to either community-based services or to day centres operated by other providers.

Both of these options would mean that BCP Council has more money to invest in alternative provision as well as resulting in significant savings for the council. Since the council still owns the buildings, these could either be sold or used for other council purposes.

Please read our draft strategy and consultation document which explains more about these proposals and then complete our survey to let us know how these proposals might affect you.

If you have questions or need help or support to complete your survey, we will be holding drop-in sessions at the following times / locations:

• Parkstone Connect (and Wallisdown Plus) – Thursday 4 January 1.30pm to 3.30pm – Parkstone Connect, Croft Road, Parkstone Poole BH12 3LD
• Christchurch Connect (and Highcliffe Plus) – Monday 8 January 2pm to 4pm – Christchurch Connect, Loring Road, Christchurch BH23 2GZ
• Boscombe Connect (and Westbourne Plus) - Tuesday 9 January 10am to 12pm - Boscombe Connect, 2A Owls Road, Boscombe BH5 1AA
• Moordown Plus - Wednesday 10 January 9.15am to 11.15am – Moordown Plus, 1005 Wimborne Road, Bournemouth BH9 2BS
• Poole Plus – Wednesday 10 January 2pm to 4pm – Poole Plus, 12A Commercial Road, Poole BH14 0JW

*Tricuro was created jointly by Bournemouth Borough Council, Borough of Poole and Dorset County Council, in 2015, before the formation of BCP Council and Dorset Council.