Social work director’s pledge to dementia sufferers over their care

Aberdeen City Council’s social work director yesterday pledged that dementia sufferers will receive the same standard of care when their specialist unit is shut down later this year.

Fred McBride said the care of residents at the Woodgrove home would not suffer after this week’s decision by the VSA charity to close it.

The charity revealed on Thursday it could no longer afford to foot the £1million-a-year bill to keep the 40-bed unit in May Baird Avenue running and it is now expected to close in December.

Chief executive Kenneth Simpson said the charity had no option but to close after the Care Commission said the facility required more staff, and Aberdeen City Council refused to provide the necessary additional funding.

Speaking exclusively to the Press and Journal, Mr McBride defended the council’s decision.

He said: “The Care Commission has made a decision that VSA have struggled to comply with.

“That is nothing to do with the council, our position has never changed.

“They asked the council to come in and pay a higher rate for services.

“We were aware of the difficulties VSA has had in filling vacancies, which we believe has contributed to their financial shortfall.

“We could not justify additional payments to any provider in those circumstances.

“There will be a loss for residents, they have been living there for a long time and moving is disruptive. We will be working extremely hard with the families to ensure that all of the people who require to be relocated will be, and that their care does not suffer.”

Mr McBride said he personally offered to talk to the Care Commission to see if a compromise could be reached over its staffing requirements, but VSA took its decision to close Woodgrove before any meeting could take place.

A 30-day consultation period, involving the Unite trade union, has begun in the hope that jobs can be found for the unit’s 32 workers.

The Care Commission’s regional manager for the north of Scotland, Chris Stadames, said the unit had not been performing well.

“We’re very disappointed that VSA have now decided to close the unit and we are concerned about the impact this will have on Woodgrove residents and their families.

“As our recent inspection showed, the service is not performing well, particularly in terms of the care and support offered to residents.

“It was imperative that as the regulator we ensured that residents received acceptable standards of care from a suitable number of staff trained in caring for people with dementia.

“The service already required to improve its practice and would not have been able to achieve this with fewer staff.”