SEQOL will cease to exist following the transfer of services to the council and hospital at the beginning of next month, its chief executive has said.

But the company remains solvent, they have stressed.

On Tuesday Swindon Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) announced that the Great Western Hospital (GWH) would take over the running of adult community healthcare services from SEQOL four-and-a-half months earlier than originally planned.

This came after SEQOL formally requested to end their contract ahead of schedule, due to their “challenging financial position and workforce challenges”.

They added they also did not wish to burden the hospital with an additional workload during one of their busiest times of the year and felt it better to allow time for services to transition across ahead of winter.

Last month it was announced that GWH would take over the running of adult community health services from SEQOL as of February 18, next year. This came after SEQOL was given 12 months’ notice on their contract earlier this year and a tendering process was launched to identify a suitable alternative provider.

Following this announcement chief executive Heather Mitchell confirmed that SEQOL would close. She said: “SEQOL can’t continue to trade without these services and the workforce, so after the smooth and safe transfer of services and employees, the company will be solvently wound up.”

She added: “I’m very proud of how my team has delivered community health and social care services across Swindon for the past five years.

“We are, and always have been, committed to the continual improvement of the quality of our services and recognise the importance of working alongside partners and commissioners to achieve this. Our staff are experienced, committed and experts in what they do.

“The SEQOL health and social care teams have consistently exceeded year on year targets and this year alone we have continued to recruit quality staff ensuring our vacancy rate is below the national average – against a national picture of recruitment issues.

“For us, it was important to do what we could to make the transition of services as seamless as possible. We all know the pressures that acute services, such as hospitals, face over the winter and adding extra service demand across the busiest point – the early months of the year – could have a very much unwanted knock-on effect to the care of people across Swindon, and so we asked the CCG to end the contract early, relieving some of our financial challenges, but also whilst ensuring consistent quality of care for the people of Swindon.”

Services will be taken over by both the GWH and Swindon Borough Council on October 1, and the CCG has offered assurances that patient care will not be impacted.

The announcement came just a day after the SEQOL Community Foundation pulled the plug on this year’s Swindon Half Marathon which was due to take place on October 16 amid funding difficulties. Despite a crowdfunding campaign to try and raise the £27,000 needed to stage the race, the campaign ended with just £2,250 in the coffers.