Health bosses have drawn up plans to close a 16-bed unit for dementia patients as part of a drive to cut costs and invest in community services.

Prospect House, in Watford, assesses and treats patients with dementia, to determine the support they need.

Often patients are admitted after a ‘crisis’ or when behaviours have become aggressive or unmanageable.

And after assessment they may return home, move on to another hospital, a nursing home or residential care.

The Hertfordshire Partnership Foundation Trust – which runs the service – now plans to close Prospect House, which would cut the number of their ‘assessment and treatment’ beds in the county from 48 to 32.

Trust bosses say they have already reduced the pressure on these beds, by cutting the average length of stay from 97 days to around 60 days.

And they say the sale of the unit – which is currently closed for refurbishment – would help to cut costs and enable further investment in services in the community.

The closure of Prospect House would release almost £1.2million. Around £400,000 of that would be reinvested in dementia services.

The trust has to make savings of £4 million from its budget next year.

On Monday the decision was scrutinised by a specially convened ‘topic group’ at Hertfordshire County Council.

Ultimately the county councillors backed the plan, but they recommended a number of measures that should be implemented.

These include an increase in the number of Admiral nurses, ‘co-production’ of community support and increased training for carers.

During the day-long hearing, county councillors heard that over the next 10 years the number of people diagnosed with dementia is set to increase by 31 per cent.

And they were told that maintaining – or even increasing – in-patient beds would not be a solution.

They heard that, currently, 30 per cent of the trust’s assessment beds could be filled with ‘stranded’ patients who are waiting for the outcome of a ‘continuing healthcare’ (CHC) assessment.

This is the assessment that determines whether the NHS funds ongoing care or whether patients have to self-fund.

But, as part of the plan, the trust aims to speed up the process by bringing in a specialist team to assess patients with dementia for ‘continuing healthcare’.

As part of the proposals, they will also work closely with care homes to help them with dementia patients with challenging behaviour and to avoid the need for hospital admission, with the provision of dementia crisis support and care home support.

There are also plans to increase the use of technology, such as GPS trackers for those who wander or monitors that record movement around the home.

And, they said, after listening to service users and carers, they would provide more Admiral nurses to support carers.

The panel heard that every year just 1.2 per cent of people with dementia in Hertfordshire would be admitted to one of the trust's assessment beds. And that the vast majority of diagnoses happen in the community.

Meanwhile Carol Whittle, health and wellbeing manager for Carers in Hertfordshire, expressed concerns that the changes could cause additional stress for carers.

She said that it was important that the quality of the continuing healthcare assessments did not fall, as a result of a push to speed up the process.

And she said it was important that support was there for the carers during the assessment period.

Se said: “There is a significant amount of work to be done around ‘co-production’ and working with carers about what this looks like. I don’t think we are close to that yet.”