MORE elderly day centres are set to close across Oxfordshire after 'transition' funding ran out.

Age UK Oxfordshire is preparing to shut six of its remaining eight centres, which used to rely on council cash at the end of March.

Another four independent centres have also decided to close since Oxfordshire County Council cut permanent funding in August, while 26 more are applying for more 'transition' funding this month.

The authority has said it is planning to award more than £400,000 to keep the majority of those 26 running, but for the 95 elderly men and women who currently go to the Age UK centres in Cowley, Kidlington, Burford, Faringdon, Henley and Hinton Waldrist once or twice a week, it may be scant consolation.

Gwyne Diment, who has managed the Kingsmoor Club at Hinton Waldrist for 10 years, said society was letting its older people down.

She said: "We are not looking after our older people: we are failing them big-time.

"Our club means that for one or two days a week, relatives get a little respite and we help people who are isolated or have dementia.

"It means everything to them, it gives people a reason to get out of bed."

Mrs Diment, who has worked at Kingsmoor 23 years, said one woman in her 90s who came in every week often didn't leave the house except to go to the centre.

Klair Price, from Kingston Bagpuize, has taken her father-in-law Leslie to Kingsmoor twice a week since he moved in with her and her husband Julian last year.

Mr Price, 82, used to live in Cowley with his wife Joselyn until she died in May, 2016.

He has now lost sight in one eye and has dementia, and Mrs Price, 43, has given up her job to look after him.

That includes taking him and an elderly neighbour to the day centre each Tuesday and Wednesday, without which they would not have a regular reason to go out.

Mrs Price said: "I've been in tears because I know how much it's meant to my father-in-law since he lost his wife: he needs people his own age.

"I went to carers' conference in November telling us how many more elderly people there are going to be, but in one fell swoop they've closed all these day centres which these elderly people need.

"These people, if they don't go to day centres, no one is going to check on them."

Age UK chief executive Penny Thewlis said she was aware it was a 'worrying and upsetting' time for club members and staff.

She said the charity had made a commitment to work with 'every individual affected' to identify alternative options for them to 'ensure that people do not lose the friendship and support they value'.

She added: "We take our responsibility to combat loneliness and isolation very seriously and we are determined that these changes will not undermine our efforts to address these issues, but will help us to reach more older people."

Last August, the charity had hoped that as other day centres around the county shut, regulars from those would start paying to go to the remaining eight instead, and the resulting money would keep them open alongside the £98,000 transition grant it got from the county council to cover the period from September 1 to April 1.

Kingsmoor, for example, costs about £40,000 to run each year.

However, the extra visitors just never came.

Mrs Thewlis said: "After four months of operating in the new way, it is clear that in six of our eight clubs, the increase in the number of members attending that we anticipated and hoped for has not happened.

"This means that the income we need to maintain the clubs in their current shape has not been generated."

The charity is now planning to focus instead on running day classes, workshops, coffee mornings and lunch clubs.

Oxfordshire County Council stressed that from 200 day centre services running last August, more than 190 would still be running this spring.

Spokesman Paul Smith explained that of those 200, just 47 had received a portion of the original £9.3m council funding before last summer's £3.14m cut.

Nine of those centres were run by Age UK; four decided to close since August and six are now independent (Goring, Bampton Bush, Fielding Lunch Club in Sibford Gower, Grove, Cholsey and St Mary’s Thursday Club in Bloxham).

One club at Hook Norton is continuing in a different format, two (Lake House and Marston Court) are continuing through funding from the personal budgets of users rather than grant funding and 26 are expected to apply for ongoing transition funding from the county.

The county awarded a total of £305,752 transition funding to cover centres from September 1 to April 1.

The cabinet will meet to decide how to distribute £400,000 between those 26 centres next Tuesday – January 23.