I FIND myself making contact in relation to an article about a Runcorn care home – known as Harbour Close and operated by the charity Scope – closing.

My brother resided at this particular home and I would like to say that the care staff and management did their very best in the circumstances.

They asked for additional funding in order to obtain additional staff.

The original registered manager was never replaced.

I believe that the home closing was planned. No support was given from head office and I think it was left to purposefully deteriorate so that a damning CQC report could be obtained and a decision taken to close the home.

Ten days’ notice to find residents with complex needs a new home was a very inhumane way of administering the closure.

Despite what Scope says, very little support was offered from the charity and families were left floundering trying to sort their loved one’s future accommodation needs out.

The Thursday and Friday after the closure was announced were extremely traumatic days, with residents wailing and sobbing about having to move. It equates to post traumatic stress.

To bring in project managers and senior staff for 10 days to help with the closure was too little, too late.

The care staff should be thanked for doing their very best with a lack of support from their head office.

It is wrong to think that the care home was run in a poor manner locally. The fault lies much higher up the chain.

Mandy Pope

Styal

Cheshire

I AM the brother of Ruth Boughey, who lived at Harbour Close for eight years.

However much Scope might claim that it was acting in the ‘best interests of customers’, that proposition would have been very difficult to justify to anyone who witnessed the scenes we witnessed on Thursday, August 11.

The able bodied are given a lot more than 10 days’ notice when evicted from their homes.

These are the most acutely vulnerable people in our society.

It never occurred to me or any of the families that Scope would act in a way that would have made a Victorian slum landlord blush.

One can only assume that the barbarously short notice period given by Scope was a breathtakingly cynical deliberate strategy.

It will have known that the energies of the families concerned would be fully occupied with finding alternative homes rather than contesting the decision.

Despite promises of full support and assistance to families, there was nothing. We were left to fend for ourselves.

My sister has lost her home and the relationships with her carers have been abruptly severed. I am bitterly angry she has been subjected to so much distress.

Scope deserves the most profound censure possible.

Simon Boughey

Teddington

Middlesex

James Watson-O’Neill, Scope’s executive director, said: “I would like to apologise to all former residents and their families that the care and support at Harbour Close did not meet the high standards we demand.

“I know from the conversations I have had that this has been an anxious time for everyone who lived at the service, their families and our staff.

“I understand the strength of feeling and reaction to our decision to close the service.

“We did all we could to support residents through the move to new homes.

“That included four of our project managers each working with three residents to fully support them in their negotiations with their funding councils and other care homes.”