A Plymouth care home where rooms could cost up to almost £1,000 a week has gone into liquidation after blaming the Covid pandemic and staff shortages for forcing its closure.
The Oasis Care Home, in Plymstock, shut in January 2022 and an online meeting of creditors was called for February 16 when it was decided to voluntarily wind up the company. Liquidators at Plymouth accountants Mark Holt & Co have now been appointed by creditors to close down The Oasis Care Home Ltd.
The company’s bosses blamed "intolerable pressures" caused by the coronavirus pandemic, and a lack of staff, for the firm’s demise, stressing they had “no option” but to close.
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The independent care home had 32 single bedrooms or suites. Prices advertised by the company ranged from £675 per week to £995 per week depending on care requirements.
Directors said it had become “impossible to recruit or retain sufficient staff" to provide the correct standard of care. Financial and operational challenges facing the care sector were also given as reasons why the care home could not continue.
Oasis directors - listed on Companies house as Steven Shirley and Tui Eliza Shirley - stressed they did "everything we possibly could to continue running the home", but it was not possible to do so.
A statement on social media said: “It was with the heaviest of hearts the directors informed employees first, followed by the people who live at The Oasis and their loved ones as well as the relevant local authorities, all of which took place on January 4, 2022, with employees being the first to be informed.”
A spokesperson for the care home explained that before Christmas 2021 the directors consulted accountants and a firm of independent insolvency experts, but decided to continue operating throughout the Christmas period.
Directors stressed that “all avenues were explored to continue or sell the home, but it is recognised that the future of thousands of independent care homes are in jeopardy as a result of the many years of Government policy affecting the care sector both as service providers as well as employers”.
A statement said: "The directors of The Oasis Care Home Ltd have placed the needs of residents and staff above their own for many years, until it was impossible to continue to do that."
Unaudited financial statements filed at Companies House revealed that in the year to the end of October 2020 the company had retained earnings, a form of profit after share dividends are paid, of £85,483. This was a huge jump from the £2,861 in retained earnings recorded in 2019.
During 2020 the company had 36 employees. Staff at the home have now been made redundant. The business also had a bank loan of £41,667. In October 2021, a mortgage with Lloyds Bank, taken out in 2013, was paid in full.
Directors said the closure decision had been “discussed in recent years”, as the organisation had struggled “like all small independent care homes”, with increasing regulation and bureaucracy compounded by the pandemic and a national staffing crisis affecting Health and Social Care services. A statement said the owners have placed the needs of the staff and residents first “to the detriment of their own health and personal circumstances”.
