Mentally ill people had to leave their homes after changes to a health contract, it has been revealed.

Vulnerable adults experiencing mental illness are given housing support, either in specialist accommodation or in their own homes.

The firms supplying this support changed at the beginning of April, but the change left some some patients’ families concerned that moving them could worsen their mental health conditions, a new report shows.

Many details of the situation are being kept confidential, including how many people are affected, where they were living before the change took effect and where they will live from now on. Before April, the service was supplied by ten different providers, including a company called TLC.

The contract has now been given to one organisation, Manchester-based charity Creative Support Ltd, after a tendering process.

A report examining this changeover and its impact on service users will now go before Bradford Council’s Health and Social Care Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

The report says the change of contract was not a cost-saving exercise, but was designed to extend help to more people with mental heath problems.

But in February and March, people started contacting the Council with concerns that people could be evicted or that their support could be reduced.

Council officers had to meet with relatives to try to reassure them, but at that point the Council did not know whether service users would have to move.

The report says it was the responsibility of the providers to keep service users and their families informed of the changeover and how they could be affected, but that TLC failed to do this.

It said: “It became clear after talking to carers/family members that TLC had not been updating them.”

The report says after negotiations between TLC, Creative Support and the Council, service users were told they could stay in their accommodation until the end of June.

Properties were being bought and refurbished to house them in the future, the report says.

And it says Creative Support recently set up a new family focus group to ensure families and carers were kept fully informed throughout the process.

The report will be discussed, in private, by the scrutiny committee when it meets next Thursday.