Hundreds of vulnerable patients and nearly 400 staff in Northern Ireland have been told they could lose their homes and jobs after one of the UK’s largest health and social care providers confirmed plans to close seven care homes.
Four Seasons Health Care said it had “reluctantly” decided to close the elderly care homes across the North because each of them was operating at a loss and the homes were “no longer viable”.
The homes – Victoria Park Care Home and Stormont Care Home in Belfast, Antrim Care Home, Garvagh Care Home, Donaghcloney Care Home near Banbridge; Oakridge Care Home in Ballynahinch and Hamilton Court in Armagh – currently have 254 residents and employ about 393 people.
A spokesman for Four Seasons Health Care blamed the closures on a combination of factors. “The fee income that the homes receive is below the cost of the care they are providing and we have effectively been paying a subsidy for them to continue to provide care.”
He said a shortage of nurses had made it difficult to recruit and retain permanent staff “of the right calibre”, which left the homes reliant on agency nurses, which “carries a high cost and presents challenges in maintaining the quality of care we expect to provide”.
The company said it hoped to retain as many of the affected employees as possible and expected many nursing and care staff to transfer to some of its other 62 care homes in the North.
The North’s Minister for Health, Simon Hamilton, has asked the Health and Social Care Board to review the proposed closures of statutory residential care homes.
