RESPITE and day care services for adults with learning disabilities on Teesside will reopen on June 21 following periods of reduced services and closure during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The respite services at Aysgarth, Stockton-on-Tees and at Unit 2, Bankfields Court Normanby, Middlesbrough, and day services at Kilton View, Brotton, are offered to adults with learning disabilities who can have complex needs or present with challenging behaviours.

The services are provided by Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust (TEWV), which provides mental health and learning disability services across Teesside as well as County Durham, Darlington, parts of North Yorkshire, York and Selby.

The teams at Aysgarth, Unit 2 Bankfields Court and Kilton View support people with their daily lives, promoting physical and emotional wellbeing, and broadening opportunity for social activities as well as offering families a break from caring for their loved ones.

To make sure the reopening of services will provide access to the care that is right for them, families were asked for their preference of choice from a range of reopening options.

Based on families’ choices, services will reopen as before the pandemic but at present will offer reduced nights for respite care and reduced places per day in day services.

These reductions will make sure TEWV continues to adhere to government Covid-19 guidelines; they will also allow for the creation of ‘bubbles’ of people attending for overnight stays and day services and will offer required alternate male and female overnight care.

To ensure ongoing support for families during the periods of reduced respite stays and day service places in during the pandemic, TEWV offered an outreach service to families.

This service was developed at the start of the pandemic to help TEWV continue to support families and the physical health needs of their loved ones when respite and day services were unavailable.

TEWV is working with the families and carers of people to use respite and day services to explore how to develop access to the service in the coming months.

The reopening of the respite and day services comes at the end of national Learning Disability Week, which runs from June 14 to June 20.