MHA Willowcroft – Property Refurbishment

MHA is a national charity providing care, accommodation and support services for more than 18,000 older people throughout Britain.

Founded by members of the Methodist Church in 1943, today they support: 5,000 older people living in care homes, many receiving specialist dementia or nursing care, 2,500 older people living independently in purpose-built retirement living communities, with access to social and leisure facilities and flexible care should they need it.

Care Home Refurbishment

In 2017 MHA selected Novus to support their mission to improve the quality of life of older people through the provision of high-standard housing, care and support services, through the delivery of their national care home refurbishment programme, Novus are one of three contractors on the framework.

As part of the care home refurbishment programme we recently carried out a £138,000 internal refurbishment project at their flagship Willowcroft facility – a purpose-built two-storey 60 place residential and dementia Care Home in Spondon, Derbyshire rated ‘Good’ by the Care Quality Commission.

The project was delivered in six phases over a six-week period from February to March 2018.

The scope of the project consisted of soft refurbishment to all communal areas including lounges, dining rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, toilets, laundry, staff room, offices and reception area.

We also carried out redecoration works throughout the property which included the hanging of feature wallpapers in the lounge areas, and laying new floor coverings.

Minimal Disruption to Residents

Given the nature of the facility, with approximately 50% of the Residents dementia patients, occupier safety and well-being were key considerations on the project.

To accommodate their needs we placed great emphasis on delivering the project with minimal disruption to the day-to-day running of the facility and maintained a safe working environment at all times.

We also allocated ‘corridor monitors’ to manage and monitor the movement of Residents, in particular the dementia Residents, to prevent them from coming into contact with live working areas.

Willowcroft residents also benefitted from a coffee morning with bingo hosted by Novus.

This afforded them the opportunity to socialise, while enabling our team obtaining valuable feedback on their customer experience, and leave a positive lasting impression.