THE Chair of North Ayrshire Health and Social Care Partnership, Councillor Peter McNamara, has ‘grave concerns’ over the partnership’s ability to deliver vital health and social care services to vulnerable Arran residents effectively and within budget if the island’s lifeline ferry service is moved to Troon.

Senior staff from the Partnership believe moving the ferry route from Ardrossan to Troon would have a significant adverse impact on their ability to secure cover from mainland staff for both in-home and residential care.

Recruiting on-island staff to provide the Partnership’s Care at Home service is already an issue. Until December 2015, in-home care on the island was delivered by an independent provider.

However - due to problems hiring and retaining staff who are resident on Arran - the provider passed the service back to NAHSCP who now provide it in-house.

Since then, staff shortfall has been made up by care at home staff who live on the mainland – the majority of whom are Three Towns’ residents who live close to the current ferry base at Ardrossan.

Now there are concerns whether these staff would be willing to travel to Troon to get to work in Arran, given the increase in cost and time.

Councillor McNamara said: “We already struggle to hire enough staff to deliver our in-home care to elderly and other vulnerable Arran residents. Now we are being told by our mainland staff that they simply could not afford the extra time or money to travel to and from Troon.

“We fear that moving the ferry to Troon would cause an exodus of staff and leave us unable to provide adequate support for those residents.

“At Montrose House, we would have to consider relocating frail residents to alternative independent facilities, either on Arran or - given the limited alternative capacity on the island - to mainland facilities. More importantly, we need to consider the inconvenience and distress that would cause to those residents and their families.

“At a time when we already have significant challenges in delivering health and social care within budget, relocating the Arran ferry to Troon would be disastrous.”