By Bill Heaney

Today (Monday) could well be the day when the SNP’s Scottish Government is saved from making yet another huge blunder which would match only in squandered public money and lost life terms the island ferries fiasco and the disastrous construction of the Queen Elizabeth  University Hospital in Glasgow — and so much else the Nationalists have fallen down on in the past 15 years.

On Monday 5^th December, Holyrood’s Health and Social Care Committee hear from social care providers and service users, including those from the voluntary sector and representing individual carers, as part of their scrutiny of the already much criticised £1.25 billion plan for a National Care Service.

Members of the Committee will meet with the Coalition of Care and Support Providers in Scotland (CCPS) before holding a formal Committee meeting later in the afternoon when hopefully – in the national interest – the whole misconceived idea from Nicola Sturgeon and her hopeless Health Secretary Humza Yousaf will be binned.

As part of the Committee meeting, two panels will provide evidence; the first panel focused on the voluntary sector and individual carers, the second focused on disability and independent advocacy.

Gillian Martin, SNP MSP, Convener of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, pictured above,  said: ““The creation of a National Care Service would represent a huge shift in how care is accessed and delivered in Scotland. It is a major piece of legislation and that’s why our Committee is determined to carry out extensive scrutiny of the proposals.

“As well as gathering detailed oral evidence in our weekly meetings at Holyrood, we have also travelled to Dumfries and Aberdeen to hear from those who would be impacted by the development of a National Care Service.”

It is a blessing that no one is listening to her and there is little or no prospect of this proceeding.

It is a great pity that their fantastical mystery tour did not include West Dunbartonshire, where the SNP-run local authority scrapped the highly valued system of community care homes already in place and replaced them at a cost of a cool £10 million plus with a large modern structure out in the hills above the town which looks more like a secret police HQ than a home to care for the elderly.

Astonishingly, the SNP council allowed one of their own homes, Langcraigs in Gooseholm, off Townend Road, Dumbarton, to go on the market and sold it to a private care provider for £250,000 less than the best price they were offered.

That is quarter of a million pounds from the public purse in a seriously deprived area which we are constantly reminded is flat broke.

They must now know that decision was a disastrous one which returned Dumbarton to the days of high occupancy care homes in places such as Townend Hospital [widely known as The Poor House] and took them into competition with the private sector for staff.

Crosslet House care home and the former Townend Hospital, locally known as the poor house.

The new council leader, Labour’s Martin Rooney, pictured right, told The Democrat only on Friday: “We are forced to consider distressing cost-saving options that will negatively impact on our communities, with our most vulnerable citizens particularly affected.

“This time of unprecedented financial crisis is the moment when the Scottish Government must step up to help local authorities to continue to provide these vital services. Without additional funding the consequences of the cuts ahead will be felt in communities for years to come.”

The public will be able to attend the meeting to witness the waste of time and money that will be spent on it – “This visit gives us an opportunity to hear first-hand from those at the frontline of delivering services and from key stakeholders on the challenges they face, and their hopes and concerns with the proposals.

“The information we gather on this visit will prove invaluable as we develop recommendations for inclusion in our Stage 1 report into the National Care Service Bill.”

And the band played Believe it if you Like.

The two panels providing evidence to the Committee are: Don Williamson, Shared Care Scotland, Chief Executive; Karen Sheridan, Community Integrated Care, Chief Operating Officer; Clare Gallagher, CEMVO, Human Rights Officer; Hannah Tweed, The Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland, Senior Policy Officer; Mhairi Wylie, Highland Third Sector Interface, Chief Officer.

Then from: Andy Miller, Scottish Commission for People with Leaning Disabilities, Strategic Lead: Participation and Partnership;  Frank McKillop, ENABLE Scotland, Head of Policy and Research; Rhona Willder, Scottish Independent Advocacy Alliance, Development Manager; Dr Pauline Nolan, Inclusion Scotland and the People Led Policy Panel, Head of Leadership and Civic Participation;  Dr Caroline Gould , Skye and Lochalsh Access Panel, Trustee and Access Auditor.

One is left wondering exactly how much it will cost for the Scottish Government to field that team of highly paid officials for a committee meeting which will go no further than the Qatar team have in the World Cup.

It’s simply a question of more council taxpayers’ money down the drain.

 Jill Symmonds – badly bruised and traumatised while in care hom.  Picture by Esther Stephen

Only this weekend, responding to the “significant concern” raised by the Scottish Parliament’s finance committee over the lack of financial detail behind the SNP’s planned centralisation of social care, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader and health spokesperson Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP said:  “Today’s report shows there is no excuse for the government unleashing a billion-pound bureaucratic takeover of social care.

“At a time when public money is already being squeezed to the pips, this is nothing short of a ministerial power grab that lacks any kind of good financial grounding.

 “Nicola Sturgeon must order her ministers to stop work on these plans and send the money to where it is needed the most- staff and services.”

The first Minister can’t say she wasn’t warned. It’s almost five years since The DEMOCRATasked if West Dunbartonshire Council and the associated Health and Social Care Partnership had done any research into the care home company which bought Langcraigs Residential Home at Gooseholm, Dumbarton.

Meallmore Limited got the bargain of a lifetime when the then SNP-run basket case council sold it to them for the knockdown price of just £1 million.

We asked the Convener of and ‘spokesperson’ for Infrastructure, Regeneration & Economic Development, Councillor Iain McLaren, pictured left,  to tell us, but all we got was silence and sour looks.

Complete and utter silence was not the kind of communication the press and public would expect from the SNP councillor for Dumbarton Central who promised along with his colleagues to SPEAK UP for the people who elected him.

They also agreed to an ongoing spend of around £500,000 a year on council communications services.

Councillor McLaren had sung the praises of Meallmore when the deal was being cut, but he is not singing now. He is no longer a councillor.

And he hasn’t been part of the gaulieter-led SNP group since we revealed that if you key Meallmore’s name into Google, you will come up with some very alarming results.

For example, this appeared on BBC Scotland’s news programmes last year: An Aberdeenshire care home has apologised after an elderly resident was left severely bruised from a fall. It is believed Jill Symmonds, 78, fell from the toilet while suffering a seizure at Sunnybank Care Home, Cruden Bay. Mrs Symmonds’ family claims that no-one from the care home called to let them know about the incident. Meallmore Ltd, which runs the care home, said the lack of contact was “unacceptable”. Mrs Symmonds’ granddaughter, Emma Stephen, published a Facebook post condemning the incident, which has been shared more than 1,000 times. In the post, she said her family did not find out about the fall until nine hours after Mrs Symmonds had been taken to hospital, and even then, they were only told after calling Sunnybank themselves. She also said her grandmother, who suffers from dementia and epilepsy, had previously broken both her legs in separate incidents due to being left alone on the toilet. The fall left Mrs Symmonds with two black eyes and severe bruising around her face.

Unfortunately, this is not the only record of shocking incidents at this company’s care homes. We flagged up the situation to Councillor Jim Bollan, who voted against Langcraigs being sold to Meallmore. The Renton councillor was shocked and horrified by what he read on the internet.

He said later: “It is astonishing that the Health & Social Care Partnership (Quango) have approved this company Meallmore as being fit a proper to take care of elderly residents.

“A look at their record in the care field is quite disturbing. A 91-year-old resident attacked by another resident in a Meallmore home in Inverness, receiving nine injuries to their head.

“A 32-year-old with mental health issues lay dead for up to a week in their flat while being cared for by Meallmore care staff.

“A resident with Parkinson’s humiliated and bullied by staff at a residential home in Aberdeen.

“How the H&SCP can approve this organisation to take care of some of our most vulnerable elderly residents beggars belief.

“This decision to sell this land to this company needs reviewed, before legal documents are signed.”

At the meeting where the decision to sell Langcraigs was taken, Councillor Bollan labelled the proposed £1 million sale of Langcraigs as “scandalous”.

He criticised West Dunbartonshire Council for centralising services then allowing the private care sector to move in and “make a profit from the care of our elderly”.

Council officers recommended that the authority’s infrastructure, regeneration and economic development committee approve the sale of the home.

The reason given was that there is still a requirement for more care home beds locally.

A member of the West Dunbartonshire Community Party, Cllr Bollan, who has criticised the centralisation of care home services since plans were first considered, said: “This proposal by the health and social care partnership stinks to high heaven and lays bare the need for the two 90-bed care homes being built by the council.

“Once more people have been duped into believing the argument that big is better and the centralisation of care services for the elderly is good for them, only for it to be thrown back in their faces by allowing the private care sector to take over Langcraigs and make a profit from the care of our elderly. Scandalous.”

Then Langcraigs residents were moved to the new £10 million Crosslet House, which also replaces Willox Park and Dalreoch House, both of which are earmarked for private housing.

Crosslet House, which is well out of the way of the community boasts a modern cinema room, outdoor terrace, internet rooms, gardens, hair salon and nail bar, provides 84 beds for elderly residents, particularly those with dementia.

But it is inconvenient for elderly visitors [relatives and friends of elderly people are usually elderly themselves] who don’t have their own transport and it’s expensive to take a taxi there on a regular basis which can be frequently if the home resident is in an end of life situation.

The bus stops nearest Crosslet are down on the dangerous A82 Boulevard unlike Langcraigs which has bus stops for both directions a few yards away in Townend Road.

The report to the council meeting said: “The health and social care partnership consider that there is sufficient demand in the area for a further care home and of the three currently closing Langcraigs presents the best opportunity to permit refurbishment and expansion.”

So, why didn’t they do it themselves?

“The council started marketing Langcraigs in March, setting a closing date in mid-June. Two offers were received and the £975,000 bid by Meallmore, who are proposing a 32- bed facility with single bed en-suite units, was identified as the preferred option.

“The other bid was made by a residential developer for £1.02 million. The report says Meallmore’s terms are more agreeable due to an early entry date as the council remain liable for maintenance, security and insurance of the site as well as non-domestic rates while the building lies empty.

Langcraigs has been sold to Meallmore by West Dunbartonshire Council, a move described as “astonishing” by Councillor Jim Bollan.

While Meallmore’s terms may more agreeable to the council, one is left wondering about their operating practices. This is an edited extract from a report from the Daily Mail on-line:

A care home worker played lewd tricks on a resident, telling a colleague it was ‘just a bit of fun’. Clarisa Bartolome and another worker terrified the woman in their care so much that she began to wet the bed and feared nights when they were on duty, a hearing was told. The resident, who suffered from Parkinson’s Disease, was subjected to ‘disgusting’ behaviour by the pair, who also pelted her with jelly babies.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) in Edinburgh heard evidence against Bartolome and another member of staff, who was not identified. The alleged incidents happened between 2010 and 2013 when Bartolome was a nurse at Crimond House Care Home, in Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire. The private home, run by Meallmore Ltd, specialises in caring for patients with dementia or learning disabilities.

Rosemary Cowe, a care worker at the same home, described Bartolome’s behaviour as ‘disgusting’. She said the nurse and the other worker played lewd jokes on four separate occasions. They laughed and claimed ‘it was just a bit of fun’. Mrs Cowe told the hearing: ‘I was on night shift work when I saw what happened to the resident and I totally thought it was inappropriate behaviour.’ On another occasion, according to the witness, the resident had sweets thrown at her. She said the patient ‘always had a bowl of sweets just as you came into the room and they started giggling and chucking sweets at her’. After throwing a black jelly baby, one of the pair had told her ‘there’s a black man for your night’.

The resident had ‘told them to stop it’. According to Mrs Cowe, the incidents had ‘a serious set of effects on the resident’. The patient, who has since passed away, ‘never used to wet the bed’, she said, but after the incident she began to do so and feared the night shift when Bartolome and the other worker were there.

Now, we do not know what local people think of these things which have happened when Meallmore Limited, who have care homes not just across the country in Scotland but in England too, have been in charge of the care of these and other elderly residents of their homes. As for them now taking over the Langcraigs Care Home in Dumbarton, we can just imagine what local people think.

The message from the council’s spin doctors is that we’ll just have to get our imagination caps on. They said it is not their responsibility to look into the background of people they are selling premises to and that it’s a matter for the Care Commission to decide whether Meallmore or any other care company should be allowed to operate.

A West Dunbartonshire Council spokesperson said: “The IRED Committee agreed, at a meeting on August 16, to sell the Langcraigs site to an established care home company who will continue to operate it to the benefit of the local community.”

Pressed to be more open, he added: “Any bid put forward on the sale of a Council asset is assessed on its own merits.  Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland (SCSWIS) have the responsibility for assessing all aspects of proposed new operators before they can become the registered operators of care homes.

“The Care inspectorate will also ensure homes meet the required standard prior to opening.  IRED stands for Infrastructure, Regeneration and Economic Development.”

I am not certain that this statement will put the public’s mind at rest about this matter. Well, I am and it won’t.

Langcraigs Care Home – sold by the Council for £250,000 less than highest offer.

Later we wrote that one of Scotland’s largest independent care home operators has announced today that it is expanding its empire into West Dunbartonshire after securing a £41 million funding package.

Inverness-based Meallmore Ltd will use the cash to purchase two new sites for future developments and refurbish some of its 25 homes across Scotland.

Meallmore already owns Langcraigs  be used for social housing for which there is a dire need in West Dunbartonshire.

But the Langcraigs residents were moved up the hill to Overtoun Estate, where a large, £10 million facility had been built at Crosslet House, behind the Timber Houses, with a capacity to accommodate more than 80 residents.

The elderly and frail residents now  in Crosslet are drawn mainly from the homes which have closed, including  Willox Park, Dalreoch and Langcraigs, which had been strategically placed within communities across West Dunbartonshire.

A previous Labour council closed the old “poor house”, which was in Townend Hospital and passed for elderly care in another unenlightened era.

The intention was to provide a modern approach to elderly care which would allow residents to remain in familiar, comfortable surroundings and to meet familiar faces from the communities they came from.

However, this did not materialise and Crosslet House sadly turned out to be disastrously hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Things were so bad there that investigative journalists from BBC Scotland’s Disclosure programme team came to Dumbarton to do a documentary on it. Part of it revealed that some patients had DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) notices included in their notes without their knowledge or without the consent of their families.

Meallmore said that the generous  funding from HSBC (a large international bank) will help the company complete the construction of new home in Dumbarton and an additional care home in Aberdeen.

The new Langcraigs was scheduled to open some time “over the next two years”, but no firmer date has been given.

Meallmore operations director Mary Preston said: “The care home sector has had a challenging year, and reflecting on the past few months has only solidified our belief that more investment is needed to make sure that care homes are delivering for the needs of residents.”

Meallmore specialises in dementia care, nursing care, specialist adult care as well as respite and short-stay care, but nothing was mentioned in its press release about its questionable history which includes significant failings.

Nothing was mentioned then about the company’s emphasis now on mental health, which it has become fashionable to endorse in the care of the elderly sector.

The Democrat asked why the council had sold Langcraigs at such a low price. It was below £1 million and £250,000 less than a construction firm had tendered for it to build housing on the site.

SNP Cllr Iain McLaren, who spoke up for the company at the meeting – where he got his information is unknown – where the decision was made and the price was agreed,  said Meallmore would be excellent purchasers of Langcraigs.

He vouched for the good name of Meallmore.  It would be acceptable to sell Langcraigs and send the old folk, along with the residents of other local residential homes in Dumbarton and the Vale of Leven up the into the hills at Crosslet, where access was difficult and dangerous to the extent that a pedestrian crossing was required to keep people safe.

That took a long time coming when the Scottish Government dragged its heels on the project and residents, staff and visitors to Crosslet experience some hairy moments in the interim.

A schoolgirl was knocked down on the main crossing point to Crosslet on the A82 and at last the council decided to put in place a safe crossing with traffic lights.Care Home in Gooseholm, Dumbarton, which was sold to them by West Dunbartonshire Council for a knock down price of less than £1 million.

SNP Cllr Iain McLaren refused to discuss the sale with The Democrat, who asked if proper background checks had been done on Meallmore, and exactly why it was felt the home should be sold for £250,000 less than the highest bid made for it.

Willox Park care home and sheltered housing at the heart of the community in Dumbarton.

Pictures by Bill Heaney

Crosslet House had been built by a Labour council and adopted by the SNP despite expert advice that old people were best served by keeping them in the community and interacting with the community.

The £10 million “super” residential home was far from central or in any way conducive to community interaction.

Apart from that, it looked architecturally more like a headquarters for the Stasi than an old people’s home.

We asked Cllr McLaren if he would care to answer the question I put to him six months before about the sale of Langcraigs. He had never replied to my e mail.

How could you be so complimentary about Meallmore, I asked, when all you had to do was google their name to discover that allegations made against  them by the relative of at least one resident it were true.

Cllr McLaren seemed shocked, almost as if he had never in his political life before been asked a question by a journalist. But then, he hadn’t been.

West Dunbartonshire Council and the Health and Social Care Partnership do any research into the background of the care home company that offered to buy Langcraigs?  Surely you must have done that at least, I asked?

At this point his embarrassed colleague Cllr Marie McNair, pictured right,  who is now an MSP almost disappeared under the table.

She became vice chair of the Health and Social Care Partnership, which has special responsibility for care homes. The chair is an un-elected accountant.

Ms McNair is also now the SNP member for the Clydebank seat in the Scottish Parliament.

Quite apart from the council passing up the opportunity to use this site to build social housing, which was mooted by some, it was remarkable that the Health and Social Care Partnership, a recently formed arm’s length quango in partnership with the council, had decided Meallmore was a fit and proper company to take care of elderly residents.

A cursory look at the company’s record in the care of the elderly field is deeply disturbing.

All WDC councillors – and officials – had to do was what The Democrat did.

This was to Google Meallmore’s name into their computer to discover that the following report appeared on BBC Scotland’s investigative news programmes last year:

An Aberdeenshire care home has apologised after an elderly resident was left severely bruised from a fall. It is believed Jill Symmonds, 78, fell from the toilet while suffering a seizure at Sunnybank Care Home, Cruden Bay. Mrs Symmonds’ family claims that no-one from the care home called to let them know about the incident.  Meallmore Ltd, which runs the care home, said the lack of contact was “unacceptable”. Mrs Symmonds’ granddaughter, Emma Stephen, published a Facebook post condemning the incident, which has been shared more than 1,000 times.  In the post, she said her family did not find out about the fall until nine hours after Mrs Symmonds had been taken to hospital, and even then, they were only told after calling Sunnybank themselves.  She also said her grandmother, who suffers from dementia and epilepsy, had previously broken both her legs in separate incidents due to being left alone on the toilet.  The fall left Mrs Symmonds with two black eyes and severe bruising around her face.

Unfortunately, this is not the only record of similar incidents at this company’s care homes.

There are records of a 91-year-old resident being attacked by a fellow resident in a Meallmore home in Inverness, receiving head injuries.

And of a 32-year-old with mental health issues lying dead for up to a week in their flat while allegedly being supervised by Meallmore care staff.

There was also publicly available a report of an incident when a resident with Parkinson’s disease was humiliated and bullied by staff at a Meallmore residential home.

We wrote at the time: “How the H&SCP can approve this organisation to take care of some of our most vulnerable elderly resident’s beggars belief. This decision to sell this land to this company needs reviewed before legal documents are signed.”

But there were no further communications on these disclosures. West Dunbartonshire Council ignored us. They remained as silent about this as they eventually did about the unacceptably high number of deaths at Crosslet House Care Home.

We asked some Crosslet House staff members and relatives of residents how they felt about what had happened.

They said the home, which boasts a modern cinema room, outdoor terrace, internet rooms, gardens, hair salon and nail bar and provides 84 beds for elderly residents, particularly those with dementia wasn’t as good as their previous much smaller community homes.

People – both staff and residents – were having a hard time settling in. The atmosphere was not the same as in the smaller community homes. Crosslet was too far away, awkward – and expensive – to get to by taxi and there were added dangers about elderly people having to cross the busy A82 to reach it from the bus stop at the foot of Argyll Avenue.

Officially, the council, whose alleged policy is to be open and transparent, and the majority of councillors of all parties clammed up, although Community Party councillor Jim Bollan did say the whole thing was “scandalous”.

But then he had been critical of West Dunbartonshire Council  from the outset for centralising their own social care services and then allowing the private care sector to move in and “make a profit from the care of our elderly”.

Council officers however recommended that the authority’s infrastructure, regeneration and economic development committee approve the sale of Langcraigs.

Although, and despite the existence of the new “super” home, the reason given was that there was still a requirement for more care home beds locally.

There still is a shortage, but the word on the street is that people in West Dunbartonshire are being extremely circumspect about placing their relatives in a care home – any care home.

Cllr Bollan said at the time of the Langcraigs sale: “This proposal by the health and social care partnership stinks to high heaven.  Once more the public are being duped into believing the argument that big is better and the centralisation of council care services for the elderly is good for them.

“This has been thrown back in our faces through them allowing the private care sector to take over Langcraigs and make a profit from the care of our elderly. Scandalous.”

Langcraigs – All locked up and moved into private sector for £250,000 less than the highest offer.

Sadly, it may have taken the Covid-19 pandemic to shine a new spotlight into the dark corner of the care homes business in West Dunbartonshire and nationwide.

The management team at West Dunbartonshire Council have in the past few days been re-designated as Chief Officers and have had their salaries increased by £12,000 a year at a time when there is an ongoing pandemic and a pay freeze in place for public service workers, some of whom are on furlough and others are using food banks.

Is it any wonder that they have cut off communications with The Democrat?

Despite the fact that Meallmore’s description of the home which has been renamed Alderwood does not match the reality, which is more in line with refurbishment that happens on the Homes Under the Hammer TV programme, Langcraigs is now open and advertising for staff in competition with West Dunbartonshire Council.

This is an example of their advertising and of the publicity they received in the Dumbarton Reporter when the premises opened in March 2021:

Links to Meallmore stories …

https://democratonline.net/2018/01/29/the-democrat-80/

https://democratonline.net/2020/12/15/west-dunbartonshire-council-care-home-sale-notebook-by-bill-heaney/

https://democratonline.net/2020/05/14/big-care-homes-are-a-bad-idea/

https://democratonline.net/2019/08/14/dumbarton-care-homes-in-the-spotlight/

https://democratonline.net/2019/04/21/why-are-our-old-folk-hidden-away-in-the-hills/

https://democratonline.net/2018/11/26/care-homes-sold-off/

https://democratonline.net/2018/11/26/care-homes-sold-off/

https://democratonline.net/2018/03/14/the-democrat-208/

https://democratonline.net/2018/01/29/the-democrat-80/

https://democratonline.net/2022/12/01/care-services-devastating-report-must-signal-the-end-of-sturgeons-ncs-plan/