Blàr Buidhe care home in Stornoway is being put up for sale its owners have announced.
The company pledged there will be no break in the continuity of care for people in care at the facility.
The move comes with HC-One intending to sell of 52 of their facilities across the UK including ten in Scotland “where we feel our communities would be better served by a local operator in conjunction with other local services.”
A HC-One spokesperson said: “A review of our portfolio was well under way before the pandemic started and we took the decision to put this review on hold last year.
“Homes which are being sold will be sold as operational care homes.
“We will be working closely with prospective buyers to ensure that our colleagues’ jobs and the existing terms and conditions of their employment are protected by TUPE (Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment) regulations.”
James Tugendhat, HC-One’s chief executive, said: “As we plan how best to use our resources to continuously improve our care homes, we are determined to invest where we can have the greatest impact and more effectively ready ourselves for the evolving needs of those we care for.
Gary Smith, secretary of the union GMB Scotland, said: "At the very moment when we need some sort of stability, HC-One is demonstrating everything that is wrong with our broken model of care and the private provision of residential care.
“The directors and spaghetti bowl of interest groups behind HC-One will not suffer from these sales, the uncertainty will only affect exhausted key workers, vulnerable services users and worried families, and the public purse.
“Workers and service users in HC-One are now waiting anxiously to see what their futures hold; it’s added emotional punishment after a horrific year where we are still very much in the grip of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“This demonstrates why we need to move at pace over the implementation of the Independent Adult Social Care Review recommendations for a National Care Service, so we can start to address the crises in our social care sector which Covid-19 has exposed.”
Plan to sell Stornoway care home
2 March 2021