Highwood Group has started construction of a £10m, 64-bed specialist dementia care home near Littlehampton in West Sussex for Healthcare Management Trust (HMT).
Working in partnership with Hunters architects and developer Brackley Investments, construction of HMT Littlehampton is due to be completed by Highwood in spring 2023 with a prospective opening date following a specialist fit-out that summer.
HMT will occupy the completed development under a commercial lease.
The care home, located less than a mile from Climping Beach, is designed to feel less like a care home and more like a familiar home for residents.
Designed over two storeys, the home incorporates four separate wings with 16 bedrooms in each wing.
The wings are split equally into two distinct households of eight bed ‘homes’, each with their own domestic kitchen, dining and day lounge spaces.
The residents will live in small family ‘homes’ with others at a similar stage of dementia; important for reducing stress and helping in the socialisation for residents.
HMT’s unique, research-led approach offers residents a holistic and “family” approach to the physical and mental well-being of each resident.
Members of each ‘family’, where possible, are involved in purposeful day-to-day domestic activities which provide social interactions, value and routine to their day.
The preferences, quirks, history and personality traits of each individual are understood and valued by staff. As a result, staff forge genuine and long-lasting relationships with both the resident and their relatives.
Each unit features generous ensuite bedrooms, communal areas such as lounges, dining rooms, reading rooms, a garden lounge and terraces overlooking the landscaped and secure purpose-designed grounds for people with dementia and their visitors, together with ample car parking.
Additional wellbeing facilities include a hair salon, café, shop and tea room.
HMT has funded around £1.6m of research grants which look into frontotemporal dementia and fall prevention and personalised physical activity for people with dementia.
It is currently funding research through several UK universities looking into cognitive studies, as well as the impact of music, social activities and nutrition upon the wellbeing of people with dementia.
“We provide care that gives back. Surplus funds generated through our work are reinvested in scientific research to serve the ageing population. As a result, HMT offers pioneering, research-led and “family home” focused care to our residents,” said HMT chief executive Tony Barrett.
Highwood Group managing director Steve Matthews added: “We are delighted to have broken ground on this superb site near the coast. This is our 39th care and retirement scheme and it’s fantastic to be working with two new partners, HMT and Brackley Investments, on such a unique and carefully-designed dementia care home”.
