Care Inspectorate applies to courts to close Newton Mearns care home

The Care Inspectorate has applied to the courts to close down a care home in Newton Mearns, East Renfrewshire, in order to protect the health and safety of residents.

Lawyers representing the regulator sought the urgent closure of Greenlaw Grove Care Home at Hamilton Sheriff Court earlier this week and now an order suspending the care home’s registration will take effect from 21 March 2018.

The action follows a formal improvement notice served on the owners, Thistle Healthcare, in August last year. However, the Care Inspectorate said sufficient progress had not been made.

A spokesman for the Care Inspectorate said: “Despite extensive involvement and support from the East Renfrewshire health and social care partnership, and inspectors, we are not satisfied that sufficient progress has been made by this care provider.

“This is not action we take lightly but is essential to protect the health, safety and wellbeing of residents.

“We realise this is a difficult and worrying time for residents and their families and will continue to work with the partnership and the care provider to ensure that suitable alternative care arrangements are put in place and to ensure the health, safety and wellbeing of residents during the coming weeks remains paramount.”
‘Poor and inconsistent’

East Renfrewshire Health and Social Care Partnership said it has been working with the care home to make the required improvements and will now turn its attention to finding alternative arrangements for the residents.

A spokesperson said: “We increased our monitoring activity and have had staff in the home at an increased frequency – including nurses, social workers and contract management colleagues.

“In doing so we’ve liaised closely with families, residents’ representatives and where appropriate, residents themselves. We’ve also continued to meet with care home owners and managers regularly to highlight where concerns remained.

“Despite this, care standards remain poor and inconsistent and not of the quality we expect from care homes operating in East Renfrewshire.”

“We are aware this will be an upsetting and unsettling time for residents and their families, and we will continue to work with them and with the care home provider to ensure the wellbeing of all residents is sustained while alternative placements are found.”

A spokesperson for Greenlaw Grove said: “While we’re obviously disappointed by this decision, we’ll do everything we can to support our residents and their families during what will be a very difficult time. Our strong preference was for a longer timescale to allow a smoother transition to alternative accommodation for our residents and their families, who remain our number one concern.”

The home, which only opened in January 2015, was registered for 113 residents and able to accept a wide range of specialist needs including care of older people, older people with dementia and enhanced residential facilities.

Any concerned families should contact Greenlaw Grove on 0141 616 5060.