CARE for dozens of elderly and disabled people and a number of care workers' jobs are uncertain after a Didcot care company decided to terminate a council contract.

Care2Care in Didcot has announced it will no longer provide care for 79 Oxfordshire County Council service users due to the ill health of its owner.

The company has had a contract with the council to provide personal care in people's homes since 2012.

Rated as 'Good' by a Care Quality Commission in April, Care2Care specialises in dementia care, mental health conditions, personal care, physical disabilities and caring for adults over 65.

Director David Vaughan said the firm was working closely with the county council to 'transition' the 79 clients under the council contract to other home care providers in the coming weeks.

He said: "It has been a difficult decision to make, however with ill health now affecting the owner it has been decided not to continue with this element of the business.

"We are working closely with the county council in transitioning these clients over the coming weeks ensuring minimal disruption to the clients and carers.

"We are working closely with other local providers in ensuring carers and clients move over to them together to ensure continuity of care.

"We, as a company during the transition period, are still providing care while the process is taking place."

The county council said it hoped the transfer of service users and care workers would be complete by the end of the week.

Spokesman Paul Smith said: "The council has already transferred many service users to other providers, using strong and established links that we have with those providers.

"Our aim is to work with providers to retain as many staff in the care market as possible by seeing if other providers will employ them.

"Wherever possible we want to ensure that service users and care workers transfer together to support continuity of care.

"The council is experienced in dealing with short-term issues that arise from changes in the marketplace and our staff are dealing with this using that expertise."

Mr Smith also said the council did not expect any service users' costs to go up.

It is unclear how many carers' jobs would be affected by the end of the contract.

When CQC inspected Care2Care in April, it said the company was looking after 132 clients, but the firm has this week refused to clarify whether it is still caring for other clients as well as the 79 on the council contract, and if so what the future is for them.