MORE than 750 care home workers are suffering under “emotional punishment” as a major firm announces a sell-off of 10 Scottish sites, a trade union claims.
GMB Scotland secretary Gary Smith has accused private care provider HC-One of showing “everything that is wrong with our broken model of care”.
Units from Blar Buidhe in Stornoway to Arcadia Court, Darnley Court and Northgate House in Glasgow are up for sale as HC-One moves to offload 52 of its UK facilities. Residences in Invergordon, Inverness, Aberdeen, Fort William, Falkirk and Campbeltown are also affected.
The announcement came one year after the country’s first recorded coronavirus case and Smith says workers are already suffering after a “horrific” period of prolonged stress.
James Tugendhat, HC-One’s chief executive, said those set for sale are “in areas where we feel our communities would be better served by a local operator in conjunction with other local services”.
Sales “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”, it is promised, with “all possible support” given to staff.
But Smith said: “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.”
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