FRAIL residents at a Southern Cross care home in Ely are facing an uncertain future after the troubled care provider announced it was to be broken up.
The UK’s largest provider of care homes announced to City financiers on Monday that its 750 homes, including Lily House in Ely, were to be taken over by its landlords, with a large proportion of those expected to be sold on.
Southern Cross executives had been working on a deal that it hoped would have allowed it to keep operating but its plans were shelved when landlords announced they were to leave the group.
Shares in the healthcare provider, which caters for 30,000 residents across the UK, were suspended and it will cease to trade once the handover has been completed.
“My objective, and that of my team, is to continue to provide excellent care to every resident and to manage the programme of transition professionally,” said chief executive Jamie Buchan, in a statement released on Monday.
Back in June, when Southern Cross announced it was to cut its rent payments to landlords by 30 per cent, Cambridgeshire County Council (CCC) moved to reassure worried families of those living at the Lynn Road home that if the care giant was forced into administration, the authority would step in to ensure residents would be taken care of.
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