PACT visits Kitwood House dementia care home

media appearances Aug 27, 2021

On the 10th August, Dr Zoe Lucock from PACT was invited to attend the professional’s welcome day for the opening of Kitwood House in Rudheath, Cheshire. Kitwood house is a state of the art care home catering for 68 older adults with dementia including dementia plus services for those with dementia who have complex needs and challenging behaviour.  

 

The first impression from the outside is that of a modern and sleek structure, with the Kitwood House name and L&M Healthcare forget me not flower sitting proudly on the side of the building. The inside reveals Kitwood House to be just as elegant - the feel is that of a 5* luxury hotel. The airy entrance area, complete with an area for coffee and catching up, leads directly into the hair salon and through a digital COVID checkpoint to the main living spaces. 

Sprawling across two floors of living spaces, the theming of the decor changes subtly, but remains consistently beautiful throughout. During the open day, we saw the wonderful work being done in one of L&M’s other dementia care homes Whittle Hall as part of a larger research project into increasing food consumption and independent eating through providing activities prior to mealtimes. This work, very reminiscent of behavioural research in its positive approach, created amazing change in the residents’ behaviours in relation to food, and will be continued to be used and evaluated by Bradford University in Kitwood house. 

After tours of the home, we had a three course meal in one of the stunning dining rooms. I was fortunate to be seated with the manager and assistant manager for Kitwood house and it was great to be able to discuss with them their plans for Kitwood house and their views on person-centred dementia care. 

At the end of the day, all the professionals entered their business cards into a hat to win a bottle of bubbly. A couple of days later, I was contacted to say that I had won! So I headed back to Kitwood house the following week to receive the champagne from manager John Craig. My plan is to take this bottle in to share with residents once they have settled in. 

From both of us here at PACT, we wanted to say a huge thank you to Kitwood house for hosting the professionals open day- it was a fantastic chance to get to know the staff from both Kitwood House and from other L&M healthcare care homes and to see how this beautiful place has come together. It also satisfied my curiosity having driven past the construction site many times over the last few months and seen it grow and develop from the ground up!

For more information about Kitwood House, visit the L&M Healthcare website or follow them on social media

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