ELDERLY residents face an uncertain future after owners decided to close the Beamsmoor care home in Sedbergh because of acute staff shortages, reports Justin Hawkins.

The home's 20 residents must now find new care accommodation unless a buyer for the £575,000 business can be found.

Owner Nigel Close explained the decision to close the home had been taken "very reluctantly" because it was becoming impossible to find staff. He also warned that similar problems were forcing other care homes in the area to the brink of closure.

Mr Close explained that compulsory training under the government's National Care Standards had made it virtually impossible to recruit care staff in the area. NCS demand that, regardless of how well or how long a worker in a care home has been doing a job, they must obtain National Vocational Qualifications to prove their competence. The extra effort and responsibility, said Mr Close, was putting people off the work when they could get other jobs without such constraints.

The final straw at Beamsmoor came when a senior member of staff

went on long-term sick leave after slipping a disc. Efforts to find a replacement through all the local agencies, including his own, Beamsmoor Care At Home, had failed.

Mr Close said that Beamsmoor was a healthy and profitable business worth £100,000 a year, but trying to keep the home adequately staffed had become such a burden after the introduction of NCS, he and his wife, Liz, had decided to give up after 20 years.

"We are just not able to continue," he said, "It's a desperate situation. Care standards have not been jeopardised, but they would be if we carried on like that."

Liz Close, care manager at Beamsmoor, said: "There is just no expectation of it getting any better at the moment. You get to the point when you cannot do it any more. It has got to do with our quality of life and the quality of life we provide for people here."

She said it had been very emotional when they broke the news to residents on Tuesday. "Things were pretty desperate, there were quite a few tears," she said.

Yesterday (Thursday) relatives of Beamsmoor residents were already seeking new care home places in the area. Iris Rice, who will be 100 in October, is one of the residents to have already found a place nearby. She said she "could not have been happier" at Beamsmoor and had not wanted to leave, but was relieved to have found a new place already.

Six residents were placed at Beamsmoor by Cumbria County Council Social Services. News of the home's closure came in a week when CCC announced the Government had taken the county off the list of bed blocking "hot-spots".

However, if staffing problems like those at Beamsmoor were to close a significant number of care homes, it could potentially return CCC to a bed-blocking situation where scarce NHS beds were occupied by elderly patients waiting for places in suitable accommodation.

Mike Siegal, CCC's current director of social services, said the council was aware of the NCS training issue.

"We realise that it's putting pressure on care providers and that the problem is made worse in rural areas with low unemployment. That rural pressure is experienced in Cumbria," he said, but added that he was not yet anticipating a widespread closure of care homes creating a problem.

John Mallinson, CCC portfolio holder for social services, said NCS were designed to improve standards of care across the whole country. "If it was going to cause a problem I hope the Government would recognise that early and take some action."

Mr Close has written an impassioned letter to Tony Blair explaining the problem, accusing the Prime Minister of "a cavalier attitude towards the elder generation" and asking him to rethink NCS and their application.

May 23, 2003 09:00