Union plea to Health Secretary to save city care homes facing closure

Unison’s City of Edinburgh branch wrote to the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Health & Social care asking him to ‘urgently intervene’ to save the city’s council care homes.

The proposals set out by the IJB are to close Clovenstone, Ferrylee, Ford’s Road and Jewel House Care Homes after they have been judged to be unsuitable.

In addition, Drumbrae care home would be removed from council control and would no longer provide much needed resident-based care. Around 270 jobs face the axe and a further 160 care home jobs would be put at risk.

The union claims Edinburgh Integrated Board (IJB) proposals “set a dangerous precedent not just for how we care for today’s generation of elderly people but for those who come in the future”.

Unison say that closing these four care homes and changing the role of another world without consultation with the trade unions and residents and their families is ‘short sighted,’ with the imminent threat of disrupting residents and their families.

Tom Conolly, Branch Secretary of UNISON City of Edinburgh Branch, said: “These proposals mean large-scale disruption for care residents and hundreds of jobs put at risk. It takes a special kind of person to do care work. Its hard physical and emotional work. And losing that kind of experience, in those numbers would be devastating. Over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, our members have put the health and wellbeing of residents before that of themselves and families. For that to go unnoticed and for them to be treated in this manner is a disgrace.”

The Union stressed that if these proposals by the IJB are successful it will leave the City of Edinburgh Council with only three local authority homes to deal with an ageing population.

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription