PLANS to withdraw adult day services (ADS) from Alloa's Ludgate House next year could leave service users with nothing, families have warned.

The message came from Tilly resident Caroline Willocks, whose mum Catherine has been using the services for over a decade.

But under current plans from Clacks and Stirling Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP), the ADS programme at Ludgate House is set to be closed down throughout January.

Adult day services support people with disabilities, allowing them to access social, educational, rehabilitation and respite care opportunities.

Caroline, 55, claims that once the ADS programme is gone, people like her mum, who has speaking difficulties and walks with a zimmer following several strokes, won't have anywhere to go.

She told the Advertiser: "Mum was using it for 16 years, and we heard it was closing through the grapevine but never heard anything official.

"Then we got a call from a social worker saying it was closing, and advised what they could give us instead.

"But mum's 83-years-old and because of her strokes and disability she needs consistency."

Despite efforts to provide those affected by the impending closure with alternative services, Caroline claimed nothing offered so far will replace what is being lost.

She said: "They came back and said they'd get someone to get mum on Tuesday to take her to Hawkhill Community Centre.

"I think it's an over 50s club there, and these are able bodied people, and mum's not going to sit with people when she's got speaking difficulties and walks with a zimmer frame.

"At Ludgate there's people who can help her."

Caroline also emphasised the benefits ADS brought to her mum, saying: "The services are Monday to Friday and mum goes Tuesday to Thursday.

"It kept her stimulated and helped with her speech at times and she would come home and tell you what she's been up to.

"She's friends with a lot of the staff and the people that take her on the bus.

"She is going to lose all of that now - because I work she will be stuck at home Monday to Friday.

"This group has given her some independence, and that's now being taken off of her."

A Clacks and Stirling HSCP spokesperson cited a "continuing decline" in the number of people attending as the reason for the programme's withdrawal from Ludgate House.

Caroline claimed the service had been extremely popular, but after the introduction of means testing numbers started to dwindle.

The HSCP spokesperson added: "The service was designed to support 50 people daily; however, following the implementation of self-directed support options this has reduced, and currently there are only 13 people using the service throughout the week."