New Care Home Means Extra Beds To Tackle City’s Shortage

A new multi-million pound private care home is set to open in the Capital, creating 88 new beds for elderly patients and up to 120 jobs. Four Seasons Health Care has already started work on the new centre, behind its Guthrie Court home in Liberton.

Guthrie House, which will provide care for frail, elderly patients, as well as people with dementia, is scheduled to open in the first week of January next year.

The development comes as Four Seasons announced it is also to plough an extra £7 million into its existing sites in Edinburgh and Glasgow in a bid to meet the growing demand for care home beds in Scotland’s two major cities.

The cash will go towards extending a number of homes in both cities, although details of which homes will be involved in the expansion has not yet been decided.

It is expected further jobs will be created when the expansions to some of its six Lothians care homes go ahead early next year.

City healthcare leaders have welcomed the news, which they say will go some way to help address the shortage of care home beds in the Capital.

Sharon O’Connor, managing director of Four Seasons in Scotland, said: “We are looking at possible expansion of homes and have built the new home where there is an occupancy demand. We think our expansion plans will really help address the shortage of bed spaces.”

She added: “The new-build home will be of top quality and will be run as a separate entity to the existing Guthrie Court home, although it will be built just behind it.

“People have found it difficult to find a home for elderly relatives, especially one of good quality such as a purpose built new-build like this one, which is why we have seen the opportunity to expand in the area.”

A council spokeswoman added: “The health and social care department welcomes any new care home which is going to go some way to meet the demand for care home spaces in Edinburgh, given the shortage in the city at this point in time.”

Guthrie House, with en-suite accommodation on three floors, is to house frail elderly patients and people with dementia.

Four Seasons starts a recruitment drive for care home staff next week, and is due to launch a marketing campaign before Christmas to attract customers.

Earlier this year, US care home firm Sunrise Senior Living put plans before the council to create a £20m new care home in Morningside.

Details of the mansion-style home, on the corner of Newbattle Terrace and Whitehouse Loan, were put before council planners in July, but a decision has not yet been reached.

Sunrise Senior Living said the home was one of three it planned to build in the city.

Edinburgh’s shortage of care home beds came to a head in 2004, when hundreds of elderly patients were left languishing in hospitals after four care homes closed with the loss of 130 beds.

And it emerged earlier this year that the cost of keeping old people in care homes across the Capital has increased by 21 per cent in the last two years to an average of £578 a week, making it the most expensive place to stay in a care home in mainland Scotland.

Care bosses blamed the falling supply of beds and inflation-busting increases in the cost of providing care for forcing up prices.

NHS Lothian is to provide four new care homes in the city by October 2007.

• Thomas Guthrie was born in Brechin in 1780 and was such a brilliant scholar that he started studying at Edinburgh University when he was just 12 years old.

In 1837 he became minister at Old Greyfriars where, shocked at the city’s poverty, he spearheaded a number of social reforms in the parish.

These included establishing the first Capital schools for impoverished orphans – the city’s famous “ragged schools” – where children were fed, clothed and given training.

Guthrie believed that improved schools would reduce youth crime.

The success of Guthrie’s ideas encouraged the government to provide funding for what later became known as industrial schools.

There is a statue of Guthrie in West Princes Street Gardens.