Edinburgh health and social care chief Judith Proctor to leave her job following damning report by watchdog

Edinburgh’s health and social care chief Judith Proctor is leaving her job weeks after a damning report by a watchdog.

The Care Inspectorate said too many people and carers in the Capital were not receiving social work services "at the right time or place". It found social workers were "constantly managing crisis situations" and that "urgent work was sometimes unallocated"; efforts to provide early support to people to prevent conditions worsening were "uncoordinated and inconsistent" and support for unpaid carers was "inadequate".

Ms Proctor’s departure, after five years in the role, was announced to staff in an email from council chief executive Andrew Kerr, but he gave no explanation about why she was leaving. Ms Proctor has also been at the centre of controversial plans to close council-owned care homes in the Capital and the part-abandoned scheme to convert Drumbrae care home to medical use.

One council source said councillors from all parties had grown increasingly dissatisfied and the Care Inspectorate report last month was “the straw that broke the camel’s back”. After the report’s publication Lothian Tory MSP Sue Webber called for Ms Proctor to resign. She said she had repeatedly raised concerns about the quality of care being offered in Edinburgh. “Just as often, those concerns were dismissed. Judith Proctor has had long enough to put a proper improvement plan in place but this report is as damning of a lackadaisical management culture as it's possible to be. Vulnerable people and hard-working staff are being let down and enough is enough.”

Ms Proctor took up her post in charge of Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership in 2018 after working as chief officer for health and social care for Aberdeen. She started her career as a nurse in Edinburgh, then qualified as a midwife in Inverness and worked as a district nurse and midwife in the North West Highlands and in Shetland.

In his email to staff, Mr Kerr said: “I’m writing to let you know that Judith Proctor will be leaving her role as Chief Officer of the Edinburgh Integration Joint Board. Leading the Partnership through the unprecedented challenge of the global pandemic and supporting improvement across key areas over the past five years, Judith was an extremely popular and valued member of my Corporate Leadership Team. I want to thank Judith for her hard work over the past five years and wish her well with her future career. We’ll now work closely with the Integration Joint Board and NHS Lothian to identify a replacement for Judith.”