IMMEDIATE action has been called for to safeguard elderly residents who receive care under the hands of a management company contracted by Hillingdon Council.

John McDonnell, MP for Hayes and Harlington, told the Hillingdon Times that he has received complaints from relatives about poor standards of care in residential homes for the elderly owned by Southern Cross Healthcare.

Mr McDonnell has tabled an Early Day Motion in Parliament calling on the Secretary of State for Health to take urgent steps to protect the residents.

Since the beginning of the year, admissions to four homes have been suspended due to concerns about the quality of care provided, including allegations of an assault on a resident at one of them.

They are: Aston House in Angel Lane, Hayes; Ashwood Care Home in Derwent Drive, Hayes; Cedar House in High Street, Harefield and Blenheim Care Home in Ickenham Road, West Ruislip.

Following the accusations of abuse, Hillingdon Council suspended all admissions to homes owned by Southern Cross Healthcare across Hillingdon.

Ashwood Care Home was the only one to receive a “no star” rating in October this year following the most recent inspection by the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI), the care service watchdog set up by the Government to monitor and improve social care provision.

Mr McDonnell said: "Over the past couple of years, concerns about elderly residential homes in Hillingdon have been raised with me.

"About 18 months ago a group of relatives came to me about how elderly members of their family have been treated.

"The inspections by the Commission for Social Care Inspection was brought forward after the concerns were raised with me, the council and the PCT.

"Police have even been called in to investigate an assault on one occasion.

"Although the admissions have been stopped you still need to think about the people there and that is why I have written to the secretary of state for health. I want some action taken." Some of the problems surrounding care at the homes which have been raised with Mr McDonnell include a lack of permanent managers and a poor handover to new management.

Most of the complaints centre around care issues, including the fact that service users are not always being treated with dignity and that staff are allowed to continue working at the homes despite allegations of poor care.

The council has said it is rigorously monitoring all the residents who are currently in care at the homes.

Jeff Maslen, director of adult social care, health and housing at Hillingdon Council, said: "We alerted the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) of our concerns over the standards of care provided by Southern Cross some time ago and we are working with the PCT to do everything we can locally to improve the situation.

"Our priority is for Southern Cross to provide a good level of service and we are intensively monitoring its performance, as well as providing it with details of the improvements we require to ensure the protection of vulnerable residents in its care.

"We have stopped new placements with Southern Cross. However, we believe it is not in the best interests of current residents to move them to another service provider at this time.

"We will continue to work with the CSCI, which is the regulator of social care service providers, to address our concerns both locally and nationally.” Lorna Inglis, spokesman for Southern Cross Healthcare, said: "Management have studied recommendations from recent commission reports and have worked rigorously to implement measurements to ensure that all issues have been addressed.

"All except one of the Southern Cross care homes in the Hillingdon area have now received a ‘good’ rating following the latest inspection reports and we are concentrating on delivering a high level of quality care for all our residents."