A HIGHLY respected widower who fought for the reinstatement of a key dementia service said he is stunned by councillors’ lack of understanding.

Neville Hughes’ petition of more than 3,000 signatures was presented to Harrow Council’s cabinet on Thursday last week, in the hope councillors would reverse the decision to stop funding the Admiral Nurses service, which helped people with dementia and their families.

The service, which comprised two nurses offering advice and support, was stopped in January 2011 and was paid for by the borough’s primary care trust, NHS Harrow, and for a short time was part-funded by the council.

However, NHS Harrow withdrew funding and the council was unable to continue as it believed the service focused on health, rather than social care.

Councillor Margaret Davine said at the meeting: “The council stopped funding the Admiral Nurses as it decided that social care would be a priority and as it was a health service it was decided this wouldn’t be continued. I don’t want anyone to think it wasn’t a valued service but the government guidance is that we don’t have a duty to provide a health service.”

Mr Hughes said: “I must immediately challenge so strongly the statement that Admiral Nurses are so highly based to the medical side.

“Anyone who has had personal experience with dementia and contact with Admiral Nurses will know fundamentally their whole training is to start with the carer and work through to end of life care.”

However, council leader Bill Stephenson said the matter had been ‘thrashed out tooth and nail’ and the NHS decided it was a health service.

Mr Hughes said after the meeting: “I don’t know what I am going to do next. I have spent the past year pressuring NHS Harrow and the council to hold a joint meeting about this, which they did, but trying to find out any information about what was said is impossible.

“I am just shocked by the lack of knowledge here.”

It was suggested at a previous meeting that the council may have breached its duty by funding the Admiral Nurses.

However, Paul Najsarek, corporate director of adult services, told the Observer there was no requirement to carry out an investigation into this as the council has ‘always been clear it does not have a duty to fund Admiral Nurses’.