The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Neurological care unit to close by end of year
HEALTH: Patients face move from Dundee to Glasgow or Aberdeen
A Dundee unit dedicated to a rare degenerative brain disease is to close by the end of the year.
Linlathen Neurological Care Centre in Broughty Ferry is home to 33 people with long-term brain injuries or complex neurological conditions.
It is home to a specialist unit for Huntington’s disease – a condition that causes the degeneration of nerve cells in the brain.
Patients are set to be moved to Glasgow or Aberdeen before the end of this year after operator Living Ambitions decided to shut the facility.
Earlier this year care inspectors ordered them to renovate the home by the end of next January or face penalties.
Instead, Living Ambitions – part of the Lifeways Group of care firms – has chosen to pull the plug just two years after acquiring the centre from another care provider.
Staff were told this week of the decision to close the centre and are said to be shocked by the sudden nature of the move.
The care home employs 84 staff, with Living Ambitions saying it will try to “minimise redundancies”.
Since it was acquired by Living Ambitions in July 2017 Linlathen has been the subject of two critical reports by the Care Inspectorate, which first
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The specialised services on offer at the centre, particularly for those living with Huntington’s disease, will be a great loss to the area.
MP STEWART HOSIE
described standards as “weak” and later “adequate”.
Following the most recent visit in May, inspectors ordered the firm to renovate the home to make it “fit for purpose”.
Living Ambitions – which recorded a net profit of more than £7 million in 2018 – said the home does not have a “long-term future”.
The firm said: “The setting and environment are not compatible with providing high-quality care. We want to focus on providing care and support in more modern community-based settings, and to people in their own homes.
“Every person we now support will be helped to move to a new home. We will work very closely with the families and carers of the people we support, and the councils who commission their care, to ensure that this is done with the minimum of disruption.
“We are doing everything we can to minimise redundancies and will offer alternative roles to as many colleagues as possible.”
Dundee East MP Stewart Hosie is meeting centre managers tomorrow to seek assurances for staff and residents over the “deeply concerning” announcement.
He said: “The specialised services on offer at the centre, particularly for those living with Huntington’s disease, will be a great loss to the area.”
The Scottish Huntington’s Association (SHA), a key supporter, was not notified of plans to close Linlathen.
SHA chief executive John Eden said: “We will seek urgent meetings with the relevant local authorities and Living Ambitions to look at what arrangements are being made to ensure the best care is in place for people with Huntington’s disease.”