Care UK to open first dementia home in city

CARE UK is to open a 90-bed residential and dementia care home in Edinburgh, the first in a number that it plans to develop over the next five years.

The company has acquired a site from Scottish property developer Redford Care close to the barracks in the Colinton area of the capital.

Care UK has hired development consultancy Amicus Development Solutions to advise on its expansion in Scotland. It plans to develop two more sites in Edinburgh and one in Glasgow and Amicus is looking at other locations across the country. Each new home represents an investment of between £7 million and £10m to the Scottish economy and the Edinburgh site will create about 80 jobs.

Care UK is the largest independent sector provider of both primary and secondary care services to NHS patients and cares for about half a million people each year.

Work on the Redford Road site begins in January and the home is scheduled to open in Spring 2013. The building which currently stands on the site – a former navy, army and air force store – will be demolished.

More than 250 care homes run by Southern Cross are to be transferred to new companies by this weekend as part of plans to shut down the sector’s biggest operator.

Southern, which runs 752 sites and has 31,000 residents, said more than a third of its homes will be transferred to about 20 new operators, believed to include rivals Four Seasons and Bondcare.

These will be the first homes to be moved from the ailing care home giant since it announced it had no choice but to close after landlords refused to drop their rent to help it survive.

Southern said it is “very confident” all of its homes will be transferred to new operators by 1 November and no site will close.