Suzanne Fletcher's Blog

The select committee looking at how our "Strategy for older people" was looking at the Bunny Hill Centre in Sunderland today to see how a centre with lots of services in one place was working.  An excellent idea, but of course it is not possible to emulate something exactly in another place.  Nor would I want to, there were some really good ideas and practices to copy, and some things I think we would do better differently.  For instance I sat in a nice comfy looking armchair in one of the waiting areas and could not get out again easily!  However I have a fist full of literature about a number of services I want a closer look at to see how we could do some things better.  It was interesting to see that there library positively encourage community notices, whereas our libraries have apparently banned them.  One thing I didn't find out much about was the Area Committee that served the area, made up of local councillors.  I'll dig around and would appreciate any information anyone else has about Area Committees that work elsewhere.