Letter: Residential care can be positive

I am interested in the proposed National Centre for Excellence but havegrave concerns that it may have come too late for the smaller providersof residential care. Recent trends appear to suggest that residentialcare is not being considered an option for the majority of young peopleneeding support and that anti-social behaviour orders and tagging areseen as the new option.

The problem is that, for whatever reason, residential care is currentlynot seen as a positive option for young people and, therefore, referralsare not being made. As a result, smaller residential providers arelikely not to survive in the long term.

Should this trend continue, smaller providers of residential care willcease to exist. They will either go into liquidation or be bought out bylarger companies who will then have a monopoly of service provision,which may have a knock-on effect in relation to costs.