HC-One Kintyre Care Home expected to go up for sale
The Courier understands that HC-One, the UK’s largest care home operator, is planning to sell Kintyre Care Home in Campbeltown.
On Monday, the company announced plans to sell 10 out of its 57 care homes across Scotland, as part of an overall sale of 52 across the rest of the UK and four closures, in a bid to ‘better meet the current and future care needs of the communities it serves’.
The healthcare provider said it recognises ‘evolving care needs, including the growing demand for more complex care and dementia care’.
James Tugendhat, HC-One’s chief executive, said: ‘Our purpose, as The Kind Care Company, is to support those in our care to lead their best life and serve at the heart of each of our communities.
‘We strive to be the first choice for our families, our colleagues and our commissioners and best meet the evolving care needs of the country, including the growing demand for more complex care and dementia care.
‘As we plan how best to use our resources to continuously improve our care homes, we are determined to invest where we can have the greatest impact and more effectively ready ourselves for the evolving needs of those we care for.
‘As a result, we are putting 52 of our homes up for sale in areas where we feel our communities would be better served by a local operator in conjunction with other local services. We are also proposing to close four homes. In both cases, we will work closely with our local partners and commissioners.
‘Whilst we have chosen to make this announcement now, having determined our investment priorities, our sales and four closures will only happen when we are convinced that we have found the right alternative operator and when residents are able to safely move to their new care placement, ensuring continuity of care throughout the pandemic.
‘We will also be providing all possible support to our colleagues to make these processes as smooth as possible for them. It will be business as usual for every home until all these processes are complete.’
An HC-One spokesperson told the Courier the company could not confirm that Kintyre Care Home is one of the sites that will be sold, as it is still in the process of informing residents, their loved ones and staff at affected homes.
However, in a press release on Monday afternoon, trade union GMB Scotland wrote: ‘Impacting over 750 workers in Scotland, the affected homes are as follows: Blar Buidhe, Stornoway; Castle Gardens, Invergordon; Cradlehall, Inverness; Hamewith Lodge, Aberdeen; Moss Park, Fort William; Kinnaird Manor, Falkirk; Kintyre, Campbeltown; Arcadia Gardens, Glasgow; Darnley Court, Glasgow; Northgate House, Glasgow.’
GMB Scotland secretary Gary Smith added: ‘At the very moment when we need some sort of stability, HC-One is demonstrating everything that is wrong with our broken model of care and the private provision of residential care.
‘The directors and spaghetti bowl of interest groups behind HC-One will not suffer from these sales. The uncertainty will only affect exhausted key workers, vulnerable services users and worried families, and the public purse.
‘Workers and service users in HC-One are now waiting anxiously to see what their futures hold. It’s added emotional punishment after a horrific year where we are still very much in the grip of the Covid-19 pandemic.
‘This demonstrates why we need to move at pace over the implementation of the Independent Adult Social Care Review recommendations for a national care service so we can start to address the crises in our social care sector which Covid-19 has exposed.’