Falkirk's Kinnaird Manor care home on union list of sell-offs by owners HC-One

Kinnaird Manor in Falkirk – hit by a COVID outbreak last May which led to a number of deaths – was included in a list of homes across Scotland to be sold by Britain’s largest care home operator, according to GMB Scotland.

The care home operator said it could not confirm which facilities were going as it was still speaking to staff and residents.

The union claims the sales will affect over 750 “exhausted key workers” as well as “vulnerable service users, worried families, and the public purse” in Scotland.

A spokesman for HC-one said: “Our priority is our residents, their loved ones and our colleagues, and, as such, our intention was that they receive the news of plan for their homes before the specific names were released to the media.

"We are still in the process of informing them which is why we are currently unable to confirm the list of homes.

“We are working to ensure that this process continues with the minimum disruption to residents and colleagues as possible, and as such we will be able to confirm once we have spoken to them.”

The news comes after HC-One revealed in May last year that over two-thirds of the residents and staff of the care home located on Brown Street, Camelon tested positive for coronavirus.

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Responding to the sales in Scotland, Gary Smith, GMB Scotland Secretary said: “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.”

According to the GMB Scotland, HC-One is planning to sell 10 out of 57 care homes across Scotland, as part of an overall disposal of 52 across the rest of the UK and 4 closures.

GMB says other care homes affected include Blar Buidhe in Stornoway, Castle Gardens in Invergordon, Cradlehall in Inverness, Hamewith Lodge in Aberdeen, Moss Park in Fort William, Kintyre in Campbeltown, and Arcadia Gardens, Darnley Court and Northgate House in Glasgow.

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