SIC left with ‘no option’ over Isleshavn due to significant staff pressures
Residents were decanted from the Mid Yell care home last week
MOVING residents out of Isleshavn care centre in Yell was “not a decision we would ever want to make”, a council official has said.
Residents had to be decanted out of the Mid Yell care home last week after Shetland Islands Council was no longer able to safely staff the facility.
Ruth MacMillan, who is the interim deputy director for the community health and social care department, said they had been left with “no option” but to move people out of Isleshavn.
“Ultimately it came down to safety,” she told Shetland News this week.
“We’ve had significant pressure across care services for what has been a sustained period in Shetland, but that has been particularly acute in Yell.
“We were just at the point where we couldn’t safely staff the unit.”
Isleshavn can hold up to 10 residents, but has supported no more than seven residents for a number of years due to the lack of staff.
MacMillan said that while they have been “managing to keep things going” for the most part, that changed rapidly last week.
“It very quickly got to the point that was no longer achievable,” she said.
“It was quite challenging last week.”
It comes after the Mid Yell care home was given a “weak” rating by inspectors from Care Inspectorate Scotland last month, with concerns raised about the leadership and staff team.
Inspectors said they had identified issues with the staffing culture at the service during the surprise visit between 3 and 10 June 2026.
Some staff “did not like to work with others”, they found, with several staff raising concerns about the culture at the care home.
Staff members also “reported feeling overworked and fatigued and that they had limited opportunities for rest days”.
MacMillan stressed that the inspection report “wasn’t the catalyst for decanting folk” from Isleshavn last week.
However she admitted that, as well as immediate recruitment, there was “a lot of work going on with the wider service” at the care home in Yell.
She said the aim was to make Isleshavn “an attractive place to work”.
“It may be difficult to recruit folk for a number of reasons, so we need to look at all the different options,” MacMillan said.
“We need to work really hard to try and achieve that recruitment, so we can make sure we can reach safer staffing levels.
“It’s fair to say staffing is a challenge across all care settings in Shetland, but it is more acute in Yell though, and it’s really difficult to say why that is.
“There’s maybe different job options in Yell that can be more attractive for folk.”
MacMillan said she could not say where the residents have been decanted to, pointing to the small numbers of people involved.
Asked if this could lead to the closure of Isleshavn in the long run, the executive manager of adult social work said that was not on the table at the moment.
“We’re working really hard to get to the point where we’re bringing people back,” she said.
“There’s no timeframe at the moment, and I wouldn’t want to give one. Work has started immediately though.
“If we absolutely cannot recruit then we may need to review where we are.”
MacMillan said they would be working with the community in Yell to understand what the SIC could do to make Isleshavn a more attractive job prospect.
And she said that they were “working really hard to find solutions” to the staffing crisis, adding: “That is our priority”.
Decanting residents from Isleshavn was “not a decision we would ever want to make”, MacMillan said, but she stressed it was purely made on safety grounds.
“The main thing for me is that I absolutely understand how disruptive this will have been for the individuals involved,” she said.
“The decision was made for safety and wellbeing, that will always be the primary consideration.”
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