17/04/2014 BBC Oxford News

The Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Good evening. Care homes in

Oxfordshire are criticising the county council for failing to cover

the rising cost of elderly care. The council has increased what it calls

its target rate for residents by ?6 a week, but some homes say it's

still not enough. Earlier, our political reporter Helen Catt

explained what target rates are. These are the amounts the council

aims to pay for care home placements for about two thirds of the people

at places. This year they have been set at ?458 a week for residential

care only, nursing care will pay more. It is about ?30 a week more

than in Swindon. Buckinghamshire does not have target rates. What is

the problem? Some homes say it does not cover the cost of care. They

said some thieves are being topped up by families, charities or being

subsidised by privately paying residents. There are claims it could

have consequences. One of the impacts would be that they cannot

get a provision of a home close to where they live so you might find a

husband and wife separated with one 85`year`old trying to visit another

going by bus, it could take some hours. What has the council said?

Firstly, this is a target. In reality, it usually pays more. It

comes out in the top ten highest payers nationally overall. The most

important thing is to make sure that people's care needs are being met.

Over 90% of people are satisfied with the standard of care and 89% of

care homes are compliant with the Care Quality Commission across the

board. The council asked the homes to show them their costs last year

and only two responded. The association says it has been

discussing the issue with the council for years. Thank you.

A project in the Thames Valley to help look for people with dementia

when they go missing will end next month if more funding can't be

found. The Neighbourhood Return Scheme is staffed by volunteers and

has been running for 18 months. The money it received from the Big

Lottery Fund ran out in October last year. Age UK Oxfordshire says it's

exploring other funding options for the county.

An inquest has opened into the death of a 12`year`old cyclist who was hit

by a car in Southmoor at the weekend. Mateusz Kucinski was killed

on Charney Road close to the junction of the A420 on Saturday

afternoon. The inquest has been adjourned until later in the year.

Members of a family from Milton Keynes are taking legal action after

their father was left with a broken neck when, they say, he fell from a

stairlift. Leslie Taylor suffered complications after the accident in

December and may have only days to live. Emma Baugh reports.

93`year`old Leslie Taylor, now back home from hospital. His family

wanted to care for him here. You know who I am. I am the noisy one.

The bane of your life. Since December, he's been having

around`the`clock care after being found at home having fallen from his

stairlift. Since then, he's had pneumonia and caught C. Difficile in

hospital, leaving him a shadow of the man he was. Dad was a very

independent man prior to this. He lived on his own. We took him to

Bournemouth a couple of weeks before for the weekend. He got a mobility

scooter. He used to sit on that and we would go different places on

that. To see what has happened to him, it has taken away everything

from him. The stairlift had been fitted in 2012. The family had been

unhappy with it. There had been several visits by engineers to check

it. This is a new chair. The family say the old one was taken away for

testing. They say on the day it happened it was found hanging off

near the top of the stairs. Her father had fallen down here were

some of his bones had been broken. Handicare, the company which

supplied it, said the safety of the people who use their products is

their first priority. In a statement, they said, we are

actively working to establish how this very distressing incident

occurred. A copy of our initial report has been provided to Milton

Keynes Borough Council and has been shared with the family. The family

say they are doing everything to make him as comfortable as they can.

Oxford City Council has apologised after a religious play, which was

going to be performed on Cowley Road tomorrow, was refused a licence. It

says the officer who made the decision hadn't realised the Passion

Play was a religious event. Tom Turrell reports.

Cowley Road Methodist Church in Oxford should have been the location

for the opening scene of a planned Easter Passion Play. The performance

is a religious re`enactment of the last few days of Christ's life, told

by local church groups, covering everything from the Last Supper to

the resurrection. But with just a week to go until scenes like these

would have been recreated on Oxford's streets, organisers were

told by the city council a licence was needed or they'd be breaking the

law. But their application was rejected and the show called off.

There is some anger around. There is also disappointment. There is

disgruntlement and a half of those who did work. I feel particularly

sorry for those who had to learn a lot of lines. A week on and it's

confession time for the council's licensing team. They've admitted

they had no idea what a Passion Play is and rumour has it they may have

been worried it amounted to something a little less holy. In a

statement, the licensing team leader said... I would like to apologise

for a wrong decision that I made late on Friday afternoon in relation

to the planned Passion Play on Cowley Road. At the time of

processing the application, I did not appreciate that this was a

religious event. I made a mistake and by the time I realised my

mistake, the organisers had cancelled the event. So, this time,

the show won't go on. But in future, perhaps, Oxford City Council will be

hoping for a bit of divine intervention. Alexis has the weather

outlook for Good Friday and the Easter weekend. That's it from us

for tonight. Goodnight. Chilly temperatures tonight under

clear skies. There may be the risk of a touch of frost first thing. In

the countryside, temperatures could fall as low as freezing. A crisp but

bright start to tomorrow. Lots of sunshine. Not wall`to`wall sunshine.

Variable amounts of cloud. Temperature is not as high as today

but still pleasant in the sunshine. The winds are coming from the

north`west and will be fairly light. Another decent day on Saturday.

Thanks to high pressure. It turns unsettled Sunday onwards.

we will see wet weather over England. Have a good Easter.

One thing we can be sure about is it won't be as cold as Easter last

year, when we had seems like this, a covering of snow with icicles and

temperatures down to an Easter record of minus 12.5 Celsius. One

year and a couple of weeks on, things look very different. The

first half of the Easter weekend, a lot of dry weather and a lot of warm

and strong sunshine as well. It is the second half of the Easter

weekend when things turn more unsettled, with some rain around. A

few showers today from the belt of cloud that was sweeping south and

the last of that