A CHARITY has called for urgent action to protect vulnerable residents after it emerged a company with three care homes in Scotland has gone into administration.
Bertinaley Care Limited owns and operates premises near Hamilton, Largs and Dundee – as well as one in Surrey – with 68 residents in total.
It has forced to shut Helenslea House near Dundee and those in its care are expected to be moved to alternative accommodation in the coming days, the administrators said.
Age Scotland said this comes days after a new report that showed over the last ten years, the number of places in Scottish care homes has decreased by 21%.
Age Scotland said it was urging providers, agencies, local authorities and the Care Inspectorate to work together to prevent future closures and ensure a smooth transition for the Dundee care home residents affected.
Delia Henry, Age Scotland’s charity director, said: “Any care home closure will have a serious impact on the health of vulnerable residents and moving them could even put their lives at risk.
"Poorly planned moves are extremely stressful for older people and can be extremely detrimental to their physical and mental health. We hope that Bertinaley Care is working with local authorities and social workers to protect its residents and their families during this stressful transition.
“We’re very concerned about the increasing financial and workforce problems facing the sector. This announcement is yet another warning bell highlighting this worsening issue. As Scotland’s population ages at an alarming rate, the pressure to deliver high quality services for older people is growing. If we continue to be plagued with the same issues and no solution – this will only worsen the quality of life and care for older people in Scotland.”
“We urge councils, the Scottish Government and providers to work together to mitigate similar issues moving forward. With a majority of care home places provided by the private sector, there is always a risk that they will be affected by financial difficulties or other emergencies.
“Creating an effective contingency planning process could ensure that early action is taken to prevent closure or ensure a smooth transition.”
The other Bertinaley care homes are Auchinlea Residential Care Home in Largs and the Duchess Nina Nursing & Residential Home near Hamilton. Care home operator Careport has been appointed to manage the remaining premises during the administration process.
Tom MacLennan, Iain Fraser and Chris Stevens have been appointed as joint administrators.
In March, the Helenslea care home was criticised by the Care Inspectorate following an unannounced inspection and highlighted that one person had not received their medication for more than a week.”
Helenslea was graded as “weak” in all four inspection areas. There are currently five residents receiving care.
Inspectors gave a number of reasons for the low ratings, including staffing levels and medication issues.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here