COUNTY council leader Keith Mitchell has spoken of his determination to fix Oxfordshire’s care system, as he described watching his father’s descent into dementia.

Mr Mitchell said his experiences as a councillor and a son left him convinced that care for the elderly needed reform.

He spoke out as the man tasked with solving Oxfordshire’s bed-blocking crisis revealed more detail about plans to merge council and NHS budgets and services.

Mr Mitchell’s father Ted died two decades ago this month aged 80, after battling Alzheimer’s.

The Royal Navy war veteran had spent two years at St Anne’s Care Home in Clifton, near Deddington, after Mr Mitchell found himself unable to look after him at home in Adderbury.

“The day I dreaded was the day he would not recognise me,” the council leader said.

“That happens with Alz-heimer’s, but fortunately it never happened with me.

“Right until the end, he knew who I was, even when he did not know other people around him.”

He added: “I cannot of think of many things worse than seeing someone still physically able, but whose memory is largely shot away.”

Mr Mitchell said he had been “lucky” in knowing how the social care system operated and being able to afford it.

But he said others, including constituents coming to his surgeries for advice, were left lost and confused about how to best help their elderly parents.

He added: “Social care is the biggest bit of business the council does, and the most important to get right.

“I want to see improved outcomes for people, so that from the moment they need help and support, they get good advice and understand how the system works.

“I do not want them to be frustrated because they are being batted to and fro from hospital, social care, their GP, back to hospital, and back to social care.”

Oxfordshire County Council is cutting £37m from its £195m social care bill over the next four years.

In July, the newly elected head of the Ox-fordshire GP Consortium, Dr Stephen Richards, called together health and council bosses and set up the Acceptable Care for Everyone (ACE) board to simplify the flow of patients through the care system. The county has been plagued by a bed-blocking crisis, which reached new heights in August when patients spent 4,819 days in Oxfordshire hospitals when they should have moved on to the next stage of recovery – making the county the worst in England.

Dr Richards now wants to merge county council and NHS Oxfordshire budgets to improve patient flow through the system.

A £114m Older People’s and Adults with Physical Disability pooled budget already exists, but the council retains control of its £85m and NHS Oxfordshire oversees its £25.4m.

Dr Richards said: “It is not as joined up as it first appears.

“It means delays in the system and differences in opinion over who should be paying for what.”

Under the reforms, the budget would be “properly joined up with a single bank account” and could include extra NHS Oxfordshire funds, he said.

An extra £6.1m of Government cash is already being spent on tackling bed-blocking through five new initatives.

Dr Richards said: “I am expecting the numbers to go up a little and down a little over the next three or four months. I am not expecting a dramatic downturn until spring, and hopefully some of the initiatives will impact significantly before that.”

Here are the five new initiatives, funded by £6.1m of extra Government cash, to reduce bed-blocking: -Hospital at home: nurse service, supported by GPs, providing hospital services to people in their homes.

-Whole system: provides care closer to home for people who might otherwise go to hospital and speeds up discharges for hospital patients needing support at home. A pilot study is now being rolled out in north Oxfordshire.

-Rapid intervention: due for launch in the near future, the service would respond within a specified time to a person at home to avoid them having to be admitted to hospital or a care home, for example late-night incontinence issues or providing support to an elderly couple if one needs social care support to remain independent.

-Early support discharge programme: help for patients who need 14 days or less of support in their own home after a stay in hospital. The service will be launched in November, initially for patients living within nine miles of the John Radcliffe, and for Horton Hospital patients from Banbury, Bodicote and Middleton Cheney.

-Enablement: support for people following strokes and operations to help them learn new skills or do everyday things rather than relying on outside help.