Perth and Kinross Council has admitted they are in talks to switch care at home services to private providers after rumours caused distress among affected residents.
Worried Kinross families contacted The Courier after rumours spread among staff and service users that the way care at home is provided in the area would change from next month.
One woman, whose mother is approaching 92 and receives council carers four times a day, claimed that she could get no straight answer from the local authority regarding the future of the service.
The woman, who asked to remain anonymous, said the uncertainty over how she might receive her future care was causing upset to her elderly mother.
She said: “For many years now my mother has received carers and is very happy with the service the council has provided and she is very worried about the pending changes.
“They help with personal care, meals and to ensure she is taking her medicine at the correct time.
“She feels, and quiet rightly so, that she should have been told of these changes that will affect her greatly, in person, by a member of the home care team instead of hearing from her friend.”
The 2016/17 council budget had included details of plans to continue transforming the mainstream care at home service by moving towards a commissioned service rather than an in-house provided one.
The transformation project will include redesigning the management of the service, so that it can support the commissioned service model rather than the in-house staff management model of service delivery.
A Perth and Kinross Council spokesperson said: “The council, as part of plans to reorganise its own care at home service in South Perthshire and Kinross, invited expressions of interest in delivering this service from providers currently operating in the area.
“Our priority… is to ensure service users are informed first and as early as possible in the process so we can meet with them to review their care.”