Struggling Four Seasons closing three Midlands care homes

THE Cheshire-based Four Seasons Health Care group is to close three loss-making care homes in Birmingham, putting 162 jobs at risk and affecting 95 residents.

Four Seasons says it is to shut Oaklands in Moseley, Heath House in King’s Norton and Ivyhouse in West Heath.

The company says each home is operating with fewer residents than they have capacity for and at a loss.

A Unison official told the BBC staff  “are understandably concerned for their own future”.

The Care Quality Commission rated Ivyhouse inadequate after its last inspection in April.

Meanwhile Heath House and Oaklands were told by inspectors in May and July respectively that they both required improvements to their care.

Rachael Junge, regional managing director of Four Seasons Health Care, said: “The proposal to cease operating these homes has not been arrived at easily, but we think it is unavoidable based on a combination of factors.

“Each of the homes is operating at a loss and has been for some time. The number of residents living in each home is well below its capacity.

“Additionally both Oaklands and Heath House would require a very substantial investment to reshape and modernise them to the standards we expect and we cannot justify this given their current and projected low levels of occupancy.

“In the case of Ivyhouse, there have been difficulties with recruiting and retaining nurses and care assistants of the right calibre and staff changes have led to challenges with maintaining care quality to the standards that we expect all of our homes to provide.”

Staff maybe be able to transfer to other homes run by the firm. It has 11 care homes and 65 day care centres in the West Midlands area.

Birmingham City Council said it would support residents by assigning social workers to the homes and establishing a drop-in surgery service to assist residents and relatives.

Four Seasons, the UK’s biggest care homes provider housing 20,000 elderly people across 450 homes, has been hit by a fall in local authority fees and rising costs in addition to the introduction of the national living wage.

The company is also struggling with £525m of debt, with annual interest payments of more than £50m.