Council promises ‘smooth transfer’ of home care despite damning documentary
SCOTTISH Borders Council has this week issued assurances to hundreds of elderly and vulnerable Borderers over the quality of home care they will receive from a new external provider.
The move comes after it was revealed that a private company exposed in a shocking television documentary is, in fact, owned by Choices Care Ltd – the Livingston-based provider which has been awarded a new contract to deliver home care services in the south and east of the region.
During the Panorama Special screened on BBC1 last week, hidden cameras recorded the treatment of 78-year-old Andrew Wilson, a client of Domiciliary Care Services (DCS) in South Lanarkshire.
The pensioner, who is hard of hearing, blind in one eye and unable to walk more than a few steps, was shown receiving a bed bath from a carer who was constantly on the phone.
The investigation revealed his four half-hour visits were frequently curtailed and, instead of cooked meals, he was routinely fed on sandwiches and toast.
Undercover reporter Arifa Farooq discovered carers relying on clients to tell them what medicines they needed and confidential care plans stacked in the boot of a company car.
She found she had little time to spend on visits, with one call lasting just three minutes.
DCS, which became part of the Choices Care Group in September last year, had won the contract with South Lanarkshire Council in an online auction, which saw potential providers bidding down rather than up, for £9.95 an hour.
Mr Wilson has now been removed from DCS and is with another provider.
Last month, SBC accepted a bid from Choices Care to deliver external home care services in Hawick, Kelso and Berwickshire.
The rate was £11.45 an hour, about £1 less than that tendered by one of the existing, locally-based providers, Nightingales of Kelso.
TheSouthern also revealed that, when the contract was awarded, Choices Care – which already has a small contract to care for learning disabled people in Hawick – was not yet registered with the regulatory Care Commission for the new service.
But SBC director of social work Andrew Lowe advised the local operators who had lost out in the bidding process not to alarm their clients over the impending changes.
Indeed, on March 24, Nightingales received a letter from a council solicitor advising them: “It is a clear breach of duty of care to cause anxiety to service users by mis-stating the potential effects of a change in service provider, whether to service users personally or to the media.
