MORE than 70 jobs could be lost at an Urmston care home after it was announced that it would be closing.

Serendipity Care Home in Urmston has closed down unexpectedly, leaving open the possibility that the workers will lose their jobs imminently.

The care home, which is registered to support up to 45 residents with dementia care, elderly care and physical disability care, is owned by Premium Care Ltd - a company which only runs one care home.

It is believed that residents have to be urgently moved out of the home by the end of this month.

In 2017, the care home was investigated by the Health and Safety Executive after an 87-year-old resident died when the care home’s lift collapsed.

Serendipity was last inspected by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in February, and was rated inadequate (the lowest rating) in every category. The ratings deemed that the care home was unsafe, ineffective, uncaring, unresponsive and poorly led. The CQC report said: “People at risk of harm were not always adequately protected. Risk management was poor, with risks not always being reviewed. Incidents were not always being recorded or reported appropriately. We made an urgent referral to the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) as we were concerned the home's fire risk assessment highlighted a number of outstanding works.

“The manager did not recognise or respond to safeguarding incidents or follow established local procedures for reporting and investigating them. The service was not well-led.”

Unison Trafford branch secretary Scott Caplan said: “This dedicated group of care workers have given their best for years in the most trying of circumstances whilst this care home was run into the ground by management.

“In the last few months, these heroic carers have done their best to keep residents safe during the pandemic, and now they are potentially being rewarded by losing their jobs. We can only imagine how worried they are feeling going through a redundancy process in these uncertain times.

“To make matters worse, the care home’s management has refused its care workers’ requests to be accompanied by Unison during consultation meetings. This is simply unacceptable.”

The Messenger approached Serendipity for a comment.