Please support my legal challenge Haringey Council's decision to close Osborne Grove Nursing Home which provides crucial round the clock care to 13 people that live there. 

Who am I? 

My name is Michelle. My mother, Yolande, has lived in Osborne Grove Nursing Home in Stroud Green, in the borough of Haringey, since 2008 and is dependent on care round the clock there which she gets from the devoted staff. She is now quite frail as are most of the other 13 who live here. I visit my mother frequently and spend much time with staff and often with other relatives. 

Critical services at Osborne Grove Nursing Home

Osborne Grove is an excellent building and provides a vital service, the only one of its kind in the borough, and yet has been in managed decline by  the local authority, Haringey Council, where most of the building is no longer in use. The site holds 32 beds but the council put an embargo on one of the wards and it has not been functioning since August 2016.

Decision to close

Despite a commitment to consider an option appraisal for continued nursing care and other functions on site such as respite facilities and short term rehabilitation along with the NHS locally, Haringey’s Cabinet decided to forestall that and close the home in December of last year.

Deputations to the Cabinet, pleas from relatives, correspondence from groups representing older people, and the Council’s own Scrutiny Panel have all said that closure and having to look for alternative nursing beds which could be at some distance away are putting people like my mother, and us as relatives at unnecessary risk, when it has been agreed that the future of Osborne Grove will now be considered further after the elections in May. 

Yet the present Council is determined to close and making moves to empty the home before the end of March, when the election ‘’purdah’’ starts and operational decisions go on hold. So some of the frailest people in the borough are being asked to move out of their only home. In my case the work I do and the network of support I have round Osborne Grove is built on this being my mother’s home.

How much I am rising and why

I have had to instruct my lawyers, Irwin Mitchell, to challenge the decision of Haringey and the inhumane process in which they are now engaged to get a halt to this closure. We intend to apply for legal aid but I am seeking to raise the initial funds that are required.

Why is this important?

At present there are only 13 residents but the place has the capacity to host 32. The number of residents was kept low for reasons unknown.  The place could be full as there is plenty of demand for services but fear this facility will be shut down for a quick profit. Plans have been hidden from public scrutiny.

The rescue of the facility will benefit the actual residents but will ensure the availability of services for YOUR loved ones as well. We should not discard the elderly members of our Haringey community. 

Something must be done and with your help we can fight the closure.