DOZENS of vulnerable people were left without care this weekend as the first week of Cordia shift changes came to an end.

Staff at the Glasgow City Council arms-length care provider missed 50 visits on Saturday and Sunday.

Last week, we reported how a new shift pattern brought in by Cordia bosses caused chaos with the service, with vulnerable clients being left without care for almost 12 hours.

Staff and union officials say concerns are continuing as the second week of the shift changes gets under way this week.

One member of the coordinating team, which organises when and where the home carers should go, said they had received dozens of phone calls from clients who have had their regular carers moved elsewhere.

The staff member said: “Clients feel like they are being punished.

“Someone phoned me in tears asking what they had done wrong and why their carer had been taken off them.

“Then you’ve got managers coming to you telling you to not move this person, but move that person, and then change it all round again.

“I got calls from clients on Friday, Saturday and Sunday asking where carers where.”

They also said the stress the coordinators are facing is causing more mistakes to be made, and added that many staff are under-qualified to carry out such a large logistical operation in a short space of time.

“The stress they are putting us under is unbelievable," they said.

“They are asking us to change the whole face of homecare within six weeks...we aren’t qualified for it.

“Every coordinator I know is sitting in tears at the end of the night because of the amount of stress.

“You will always have human error and sometimes clients do get missed, but not at this level.”

Home carers, telephonists and coordinators have all contacted the Evening Times expressing their concern and say the situation is now critical.

They are urging for more to be done by both the council and city politicians, as well as senior management at Cordia, to prevent vulnerable people being left without support.

A spokesman from Unison, the union representing many of the staff at the care firm, said: “I still have staff phoning me saying they don’t know what medication to give to clients, as they haven't visited them before.

“Glasgow City Council must step in to stop this mess before someone is killed.”

Councillor Malcolm Cunning, city council social care spokesman, told the Evening Times that the changes were vital and he is in regular contact with Cordia bosses during the transition period.

A Cordia spokesman said: “Over the first weekend of the new shift patterns, we missed 50 visits, although in the vast majority of those cases we saw the service users later in the day.

“This is a minority of the 25,000 visits carried out over the weekend, but is still unacceptable and we apologise.

“We are confident that as we are now in the second week of the two-weekly cycle we will quickly see a return to normal levels of service.”

hannah.rodger@eveningtimes.co.uk