INPATIENT beds for older people with dementia are to be cut despite a rising elderly population.

The number of beds for older people will be cut from 71 to 60 as part of a modernisation programme by Worcestershire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust, the organisation which runs the county’s mental health services.

The beds are for older people – over 65s – with conditions such as bipolar disorder, depression or Alzheimer’s disease. The number of beds for younger adults with mental health problems (under 65s) will also be reduced from 85 to 70 while staff levels will be reduced through natural wastage rather than job cuts, but details of numbers have not been disclosed.

Mental health chiefs said people would expect to stay in their own homes as long as possible and maintain a normal life, despite their illness, and would not be looking for inpatient care as a first choice.

Because of bed cuts there will be the same, if not more staff, per patient.

The cuts were revealed at a meeting of the health watchdog HOSC (the health over-view and scrutiny committee).

Jan Ditheridge, chief operating officer, said: “There are growing numbers of older people in Worcestershire and therefore we will have more people with dementia in the future and people with dementia and their carers in the future will probably want something quite different to what we have offered in the past.”

Currently, there are 36 beds for older adults in Newtown in Worcester, 18 at Kidder-minster, 11 in Bromsgrove and six in Redditch (71 beds).

Under the plans beds for older people would be based in two modernised centres in the county, instead of four, with 30 beds at a redeveloped Newtown and at 30 at the Brookhaven site at the Prin-cess of Wales Community Hospital in Bromsgrove.

All rooms will be single sex with en suite facilities. The trust is investing £17.1 million (£11.6 million in older adult services and £5.5 million in adult services) on modernisation of the facilities, including refurbishment work and some extensions.

The investment in improvements to Newtown will cost at least £6.5 million and will involve “significant redevelopment” of the site to create a suitable inpatient facility.

Coun Pam Davey, one of the HOSC members, said people with mental health problems must be treated with “basic dignity”.

She said: “If you treat people in a way that removes their dignity you hasten their retreat into oblivion.”

The investment would lead to long-term revenue savings via reduced service costs by cutting the number of sites and the number of beds.

The move is expected to save about £500,000 a year in the area of older adult care and £700,000 for acute adult care.