Four MPs back campaign to save eight Derbyshire council care homes facing closure

Pictured, left to right, are Labour's South Derbyshire MP Samantha Niblett, Chesterfield MP Toby Perkins and NE Derbyshire MP Louise Sandher-Jones, courtesy of the MPs

By Jon Cooper – Local Democracy Reporting Service

Four MPs are backing a union campaign urging Derbyshire County Council to save eight of its care homes from feared closure after a collapsed sale.

The former Conservative-controlled council chose to sell the eight care homes while managing a multi-million pound budget deficit and after the new Reform UK council administration took control following the May election it echoed a similar strategy until the planned sale to a single provider collapsed leaving the homes in danger of closure.

Derbyshire County Council is now being urged by the UNISON union to save the care homes from feared closure with backing from four concerned Derbyshire Labour MPs including Louise Sandher-Jones, Toby Perkins, Jonathan Davies and Samantha Niblett who met with families affected by the decision on January 30th.

The eight care homes the former Conservative council agreed in November 2024 to stop operating and to sell include: The Grange, at Eckington; Thomas Colledge House, at Bolsover; New Bassett House, at Shirebrook; Briar Close, at Borrowash; Castle Court, at Swadlincote; Lacemaker Court, at Long Eaton; The Leys, at Ashbourne; and The Rowthorne, at Swanwick.

NE Derbyshire MP Louise Sandher-Jones said: “Hearing staff from The Grange speak with such passion about the residents they care for was humbling. This home is at the heart of Eckington in North East Derbyshire, and families are deeply worried about its future.

“I have been fighting from the start for transparency and accountability from the county council, and it’s clear that short-term thinking risks residents and the community losing a precious asset. We must fight these plans.”

The MPs including Ms Sandher-Jones, Chesterfield’s Toby Perkins, Mid-Derbyshire’s Jonathan Davies, and South Derbyshire’s Samantha Niblett met with care home staff and concerned relatives of residents who UNISON claims are facing distress and uncertainty caused by the feared closures.

UNISON claims the Reform UK-controlled council now wants to close eight of its care homes after their failed sale, despite strong public opposition and warnings from unions, families and campaigners about the impact on vulnerable residents and staff.

The former Conservative council administration based its original decision to sell the homes on a need to refocus adult care services by supporting more dementia patients and helping more people to stay at home due to what it claimed was a decline in demand for residential care.

Despite the new Reform UK council administration taking control after the May election it echoed a similar strategy but the council confirmed on December 15 that the planned sale had collapsed and UNISON claims the authority aims to shut the homes after its failed attempt to sell them to a single private provider.

Chesterfield MP Toby Perkins said: “This was a heartbreaking meeting hearing from the families of residents who fear for the wellbeing of their loved ones, and from dedicated, experienced workers who fear for their jobs.

“From what staff said at the meeting, there is an unmet demand for these care homes, but the council are preventing staff from marketing them to new enquiries.

“This is the same deliberate managed decline from this Reform administration that we saw previously when the Conservatives ran the council.

“When the previous administration closed numerous homes, including The Spinney in Chesterfield, we were assured that residents who moved would now be secure that their homes were safe, but sadly, there are residents who were moved out of The Spinney against their wishes in 2022 who are now facing being moved again.”

He added: “I am also concerned that in closing these care homes, it will only cost the county council far more in the long term by having to pay private providers, a lesson they have been slow to learn on accommodation for children in care, which has cost hundreds of thousands if not millions.

“I would urge the Reform leadership to listen to families, residents, and staff, and reconsider their proposals to close these homes.”

UNISON has long opposed the planned sale and closures, led demonstrations and protests, organised public meetings and repeatedly urged the council to rethink plans it says risk uprooting vulnerable residents and breaking up experienced care teams.

Opposition Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green Party councillors have also previously joined campaigners and concerned residents in a failed bid to stop the former Conservative council agreeing to sell the eight care homes.

Nine Labour MPs also appealed to the former Conservative council administration in July, 2024, to reconsider its proposals to close the care homes after they claimed this could prove to be ‘devastating’ with ‘serious consequences’.

The new Reform UK-controlled council stated the focus of the council’s in-house care homes is now upon the growing number of people with dementia and their carers including long-term specialist dementia care coupled with respite day and night breaks.

It had agreed in principle for a single care home provider to take over the running of all eight residential homes as part of a wide-reaching plan by the authority to remodel its in-house care services.

The council said the current focus on its in-house care homes is based on providing wraparound care for the growing number of people with dementia and their carers alongside closer working with health partners to increase the number of community support beds to help with timely discharges from hospital.

However, UNISON East Midlands Regional Officer, Dave Ratchford, said UNISON East Midlands cannot agree that private sector placements are an acceptable substitute because he says the quality of provision in the private sector remains questionable and he claims the costs of private care are too unstable and have already led to enormous problems for the council in children’s care.

Following the collapsed sale, the council revealed it has been having to revise its plans.

County Cllr Joss Barnes, Cabinet Member for Adult Care, stressed that each care home resident is being supported with a dedicated case worker, families are being consulted and kept involved in the process, and staff will be supported with redeployment and employment processes.

He added that he was ‘devastated’ that despite the hard work by the council and the relevant company, negotiations for the sale of the eight care homes had failed.

Cllr Barnes said that work will be undertaken to support residents to find new homes and the council will continue to do everything to support residents, families, friends and council colleagues through this difficult time.

Following criticism over the collapsed sale of the eight care homes, Cllr Barnes said any suggestion that residents are being abandoned or placed at risk is inaccurate and risks unnecessarily alarming families and the wider community.

He added that the council remains open to dialogue and engagement and UNISON spokesperson Mr Ratchford has also said the union remains ever ready to discuss these matters constructively.

Cllr Barnes said: “I understand how upsetting the news of the closures has been for families and I’d like to say again how sorry I am to all our residents, families and care colleagues. This is not the outcome we’d hoped and worked hard for.

“We marketed the care homes on an individual basis and offers were invited for both single, multiple homes or as a whole package. We worked intensively to sell them as going concerns but unfortunately the sale couldn’t be progressed.

“The health and wellbeing of our residents, their families and friends, and our valued colleagues, is our top priority and we are doing everything we can to support them.

“It’s vital we have an in-house care service fit for the future and our transformation will help us support the whole of Derbyshire.

“As well as a decline in demand for traditional residential care, there’s been an increase in the need for specialist dementia care – including specialist dementia residential care with integrated day services and respite care to help support carers who look after loved ones at home.

“By refocusing our in-house care services, including our home care team and increasing the number of community support beds to support hospital discharge, we can help support more Derbyshire residents to live independently at home, which is what they tell us they want.

“Our own care homes are part of a much bigger residential care market within the Private, Voluntary and Independent sector, who we work closely with as system partners to maintain a buoyant care market in Derbyshire. There is no statutory duty for us to run our own homes.

“We continue to work closely with all those affected to ensure they find suitable new homes and their individual needs are cared for, including following up to ensure they are settled in.”

UNISON is holding a ‘silent vigil’ and not a public rally near The Grange care home, on Southgate, in Eckington, on February 6th, despite concerns from Derbyshire County Council that it might disturb residents.

This will be followed by a UNISON-backed demonstration for the public at the council’s County Hall, in Matlock, from 1pm, on February 11th, with campaigners opposed to the feared closures.

UNISON Derbyshire branch secretary Martin Porter said: “People are angry, but they’re also desperate for common sense to prevail. If there’s a way to keep homes like The Grange open, that must be better than shutting the doors and forcing residents to move.”

The former Conservative-controlled county council also agreed to sell a ninth care home – Ada Belfield, in Belper – by putting it up for transfer on the open market.

The council’s new Reform UK administration has stated it intends for this centre to be leased to a new provider after they appointed property agents Ernest Wilson to offer the commercial lease on the facility.

Ada Belfield is currently being marketed as a going concern with the council looking to transfer this care home to a provider with a proven track record and the council aims to offer it for lease and retain the building.

Campaigners who have opposed the sale of Ada Belfield in a long-running campaign have also raised concerns that privatisation gives care companies the freedom to raise fees to any level they choose and the campaigners claim that nearly 90per cent of private care home residents nationally require council supplements to pay for their accommodation.

Mid Derbyshire MP Jonathan Davies said: “I welcome that the Government is increasing funding for the NHS and local authorities to provide the level of care that people can rightly expect. I want to see Derbyshire County Council work with the NHS to utilise that improved funding and it is immensely disappointing that they are instead taking decisions that will see the care homes close.

“Hearing from staff, residents, and local people impacted by the council’s decisions is a stark reminder of the need for the authority to urgently reconsider its approach.

“Firstly, the council needs to secure the future of care at the Ada Belfield centre as I do not want to see that state-of-the-art home reach the same fate as the other care homes in Derbyshire.

“I also urge the council to redouble its efforts to find a buyer for the Briar Close House [Borrowash] or run the service itself, and if that means a new approach in allowing different operators to purchase individual homes, then the council should proceed in that manner.”