Proposed Changes to our Careline Service in Carlisle

From 4 April 2016 we are proposing to make changes to Riverside Careline Service based in Carlisle.

Monitoring Service

From 4 April 2016 calls will be handled by our highly trained and dedicated team in our Customer Service Centre in Merseyside rather than Carlisle. All the features and benefits that customers receive will remain the same to help people stay independent in their home. Customers will pay no more for this than they do for the existing monitoring service and the monitoring service will continue to be available 24 hours a day. 

Response Service

From 4 April 2016 we plan to close the Careline response service.  This means that customers will not be visited by a Riverside Careline employee and therefore will no longer pay for this part of the service. We are actively looking for an alternative provider for the response service, to minimise the impact to customers, including corporate clients.

Why have these changes been proposed?

Over the next four years Riverside needs to save £30 million due to changes announced by the Government. This means we have been forced to review our services and make some tough decisions.  One of which is to close the response service provided by Careline; a service that has been financially subsidised by Riverside for several years. This decision was not taken lightly.

We have written to all our customers, corporate clients, agencies and partners to ensure that they are aware of the changes, why the changes have had to be made and what the next steps are.

We have had discussions with both the Carlisle City Council and Cumbria County Council representatives about whether they could fund the response service as an alternative. These discussions have not produced an alternative solution but we are continuing to look for an alternative provider.