Cornwall care homes temporary closure 'is terrible'

The temporary closure of three care homes, resulting in residents needing to be moved is "terrible", health bosses say.

Cornwall Care, the county's largest provider, said the restructuring will ensure services can keep running at a critical time.

Care homes residents will be supported in moving and staff are being redeployed, the charity said.

The move "will be awful" for those affected said Cornwall Care's chair.

"It sounds terrible and it is terrible, and it will be awful for all the affected staff and residents", said Sally Taylor.

"But it will hopefully give us the opportunity to do things differently and do things better…because our constant aim is to provide as good as possible care to the people of Cornwall."

She said the decision was reached due to difficulties recruiting and finding accommodation for care staff, too much reliance on agency workers and coronavirus complications restricting occupancy in care homes.

Cornwall Council declared a critical incident in adult social care on Tuesday and it was later announced that elderly and vulnerable people may receive fewer home visits from carers as part of measures to address the pressures.

Headlands in Carbis Bay will be closing and merging with Trewartha, Mountford in Truro will shut and join with Redannick, and Trengrouse in Helston will be closed.

Cornwall Care provides about 650 beds and more than 200 community packages of care.

Ms Taylor said: "There is a system-wide problem with adult social care."

She thanked the "amazing" staff for their "continued dedication, care and commitment"

Every resident being moved and their families will be spoken to individually to discuss their needs, said Ms Taylor.

"Anything we can do to minimise the disruption to the affected people we will absolutely do because we totally understand that this is not an easy thing."

The restructure is the second phase of a three stage strategy to streamline the care services offered by Cornwall Care and strengthen the charity's resilience to the impact of the pandemic and the ongoing recruitment and financial issues.

The first part of the strategy, which began in 2021, involved selling the charity's administrative headquarters in Threemilestone, implementing plans to sell the building, start debt recovery procedures and making a small number of staff redundant.

A consultation is being launched on the decision to close three of Cornwall Care's 16 homes and the result will be announced on 24 February.

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