476 care homes have “sold up or collapsed” in past decade

Scottish Liberal Democrat MP Angus MacDonald has today (Sunday 16th November) said the SNP are presiding over a crisis in care after new research from his party revealed that 476 care homes for older people have either sold up or collapsed over the past decade.

In response to a freedom of information request by the party, the Scottish Care Inspectorate provided the number of care homes for older people where services have been cancelled.

This refers to when services have either ceased operating entirely or where the business has changed hands. If a care home has changed hands, the new business would need to re-register the home for services to continue operating.

The figures show that over the past decade, 476 care homes have either sold up or collapsed.

This number includes 56 care homes in Glasgow, 46 in Fife, 43 in Edinburgh, 36 in South Lanarkshire and 24 in Highland.

Among the care homes who provided data, 43 care homes cited financial inviability as a reason for cancelling services, while 27 cited problems around recruiting staff.

In October, Mr MacDonald, the Liberal Democrat MP for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire, hosted a conference on the state of the care sector in Scotland.

Contributors from across the social care sector took part, including Professor Andy Elder, President of the Royal College of Physicians, Donald Macaskill, Chief Executive of Scottish Care, and Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes.

Angus MacDonald said:

“These figures expose the mammoth strains on our care sector, and the chronic lack of government action to tackle them.

“Care providers feel like they’re on their own. The SNP wasted four years and £30 million on a bureaucratic takeover of social care that they ultimately had to ditch. Meanwhile, the UK Labour Government only made things worse by clobbering providers with a cruel tax hike.

“With an increasingly ageing population, fixing the shortage of care homes has never been more important. And it’s only by delivering better care at home and in the community that we can free up space in hospitals and ease pressures right across the NHS.

“Liberal Democrats are the only party with a realistic plan to fix this crisis. We need to invest in community care, including in the West Highlands, where I have called for four new homes to be built with onsite staff accommodation.

“We also want the UK Government to exempt care providers from their national insurance hike and introduce a new minimum wage for care workers that that is £2 higher than the national minimum wage. That’s how we can attract more people into the profession and get everyone the care they need at home or in the community.”