Willenhall care home hit by cash crisis
A Willenhall care home is not financially viable, council bosses have said as they offered to help families to move their relatives out.
Health and social care chiefs at Walsall Council have said there is no issue over the quality of care provided at The Manor House in Walsall Road, but there have been on-going problems and staff have not been paid.
The authority said it has had to provide support for maintaining staffing levels to keep the facility running. The council provides funding for 22 residents, while Staffordshire and Wolverhampton councils each fund one resident.The authority said all of them are aged over 65 and have dementia.
Staff at the care home have denied there are any financial problems and said they had only been paid two days late this month because the owner of the business had been in hospital.
They said they had followed procedures to inform Walsall Council what had happened and had supplied the authority with bank statements and utility bills. They have also denied that council staff had been sent in.
See also: Kidderminster care home receives top award.
The local authority said it had informed relatives of residents about its concerns regarding the financial viability of the business after working with the care home for a number of weeks.
The authority has offered to help residents move to other care homes in the borough if they or their relatives wished.
Walsall Council said there was no issue over the quality of care provided.
The authority's social care chief, Councillor Diane Coughlan, said: "We want to absolutely reassure people that there is no question of the quality of care at The Manor House being anything other than good.
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"The situation we are dealing with is purely a financial one. We don't want to move any resident from an environment where they are safe and happy but the truth of the matter is that The Manor House care home is not financially viable."
Jason Horton, HR manager at The Manor House, which is owned by his wife Karenjit Horton, said staff had been paid two days late this month because his wife had been in hospital. "We haven't got financial difficulties. We followed our procedure, " he said.
