PLANS to scrap intermediate and respite services at a Westhoughton care home are going ahead.

But fresh investment is to transform it into a pioneering day-care centre.

Residents have campaigned hard, urging Bolton Council to reconsider closing 24 beds at Winifred Kettle Community Care Centre in favour of more home-based care.

Online and paper petitions, each attracting more than 1,000 signatures, were submitted to Bolton Council.

But Winifred Kettle’s 24 beds will be shut by May, with intermediate patients transferred to Laburnum Lodge in Breightmet and those requiring respite care sent to Wilfred Geere in Farnworth.

But, thanks to a redirection of NHS funding, Winifred Kettle will house Bolton’s first locally-based expert health centre, which will cater for 700 patients every year from Westhoughton alone.

The new services will be developed throughout 2014 and 2015, with social workers, nurses, pharmacists, mental health practitioners and therapists to be relocated to Winifred Kettle.

As soon as the beds are removed, a community clinic will also be opened at Winifred Kettle, including a treatment room and podiatry and physiotherapy services.

Extra space upstairs will be made available to the voluntary sector, for community and faith groups to use.

Cllr Christopher Peacock, who represents Westhoughton North and Chew Moor, said: “This is brilliant for Westhoughton and something we would like to have told people at the time but couldn’t.

“I think there would have been less ardent opposition to the changes if people had known what was planned for Winifred Kettle.

“I have understood people’s concerns, as beds leaving Westhoughton looks like bad news, but this new facility is something Westhoughton has been crying out for.”