AN extra £235,000 will help more elderly people in Worcestershire stay in their homes.

That means the county has now received £2 million under the Government’s Disabled Facilities Grants which enable councils to fund adaptations to peoples’ homes which help people to live independently and saves them from an unnecessary stay in hospital or going into residential care.

But before this latest announcement Worcester City Council had already made the decision to put an extra £20,000 into next year’s budget for this scheme in a bid to keep waiting lists low.

Councillor Francis Lankester, cabinet member for safer and stronger communities, said: “We have done that because we think it’s the right thing to do and because we want people to come out of hospital and live their own lives in their own homes.

“This extra funding is to be welcomed because it’s even more definite that there won’t be a waiting list now.”

Coun Lankester said while the cabinet’s decision to put extra funding into this scheme was made before it received a £32,000 boost to its initial allocation of £233,000 he said it will all get spent. He said: “The demand for this is something I can only see increasing in the future as people live longer, there are more single households and more determination to get people out of hospital beds and back into their homes.”