NEW and expanded community care services in York have exceeded their targets in the year since they were set up, councillors will be told this week.

The Community Response Teams (CRT) in the city have been expanded over the last four months, so 350 more people each year can be looked after at home instead of being admitted to hospital rehabilitation units.

Archways rehabilitation unit at York Hospital closed in December 2016, and councillors on a health scrutiny committee have asked health bosses to explain their decisions, and what has happened to services since.

A report prepared for that committee now shows the newly expanded CRT has exceeded plans from November onwards, and it is also looking after a higher proportion of people who have “stepped up” from the community and potentially avoided a hospital stay entirely.

Figures also show significant increases in the number of people referred to the CRTs directly from the accident and emergency department, who could again have avoided a hospital stay entirely.

The report says that when elderly people are admitted to hospital beds they lose muscle power very quickly, and often irreversibly.

“Therefore minimising hospital stays (or avoiding admission altogether) is essential.”

However, the document does confirm that York Hospital had trouble recruiting staff for the new team and it was not until the end of January that it could support the planned extra 22 patients at any one time.

In addition, figures show that in January the trust did not see a reduction in the number of admissions to community inpatient beds like Archways. This went against the reduction anticipated when the Archways closure was planned.

Earlier this month the hospital authorities denied claims that Archways staff have not been deployed to the community team as promised, leaving vulnerable and elderly people suffering a “double whammy” of cuts.

Defend Our NHS York activists had told a council meeting that although they were told Archways staff would be given jobs in the community team that had not happened.

However a hospital spokesman said the Community Response Team (CRT) has expanded by 50 per cent since the closure of Archways in December.