Q&A
create that facility in-house. That allows us to maintain and manage quality and also innovate more effectively. I want to make sure - if we are going to build for others as well - we do it to a very high standard because, at the end of the day, it is about our reputation. At this stage in the growth of Savista - from a standing start two years ago - we are building four communities right now and we finished two projects Henley Manor, and Hutton View in the last year.
TCHE: Are you in the market for acquisitions of other businesses or care homes?
Goyal: Not really, no. That has not been our strategy for the best part of ten years. We want to build the best care facilities from scratch. We can’t do that with the existing stock.
We are not here to grow the portfolio just for the sake of it, we have got a certain standard of offering that we will continue to develop. We would rather do that by organically building our own care homes and care villages.
TCHE: Other than Santhem Residences, do you plan to start any other new ventures?
Goyal: We are looking at new care homes, new designs. We are trying to utilise our experience and others to think of what’s next in terms of dementia care design. That requires a lot of effort, a lot of forward projection and an element of risk taking. The moment you depart from what you are used to, you are adding risk. But we believe that is the right way to go forward.
TCHE: What is the future of your dementia care?
Goyal: We are looking at how we create more outdoor space, how we create smaller communities like smaller household living, how we ensure residents don’t feel like they are lost in a huge complex.
We are also looking at how we provide more facilities for residents to have more meaningful lives. We do a lot of that already in terms of activity and lifestyle programmes, but we believe there is a lot more we could do.
We have set ourselves a challenge, or target, around how you occupy someone for 10-16 hours a day meaningfully. We have a raft of plans around that where we really want to be innovative.
There are three parts to that. One is looking at where the sector is going. The
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second is looking at what people want. The third is looking at what people don’t yet know what they want - things that you provide and they say ‘Oh my gosh! This is amazing and I didn’t know I even wanted this.’
We are working in that third area and that requires a lot of assumptions and guesswork, but it is also exciting because this is something that may not have been thought of before.
TCHE:Are you talking about theoretical improvements or technological improvements to dementia care?
Goyal: It’s a bit of both. Some of it will require technology, other improvements will be about facilities and how we keep our residents meaningfully occupied and engaged in activity.
Imagine during lockdown that you didn’t have anything to do all day. You might say you’d go mad but we allow residents in care homes to potentially not have huge amounts to do. Obviously, they have their meals, weekly activities and engagement with care teams and with each other, but my personal view is that we’ve got to provide them with more to do, and that is what we are working on at the moment.
I cannot say too much because we haven’t developed it all - - but it will require more facilities, more buildings, more cost and an element of risk. But we have always generally got it right in the past, so it is time to take that risk. I use the analogy of the iPad. When the iPad came out, I thought ‘I’ve already got a laptop and a phone, why do I need another contraption to carry around with me?’. But I bought one and I’ve had one ever since. Steve Jobs saw the gap in the market and created a huge seller. That is the kind of area we are working in,
something that you don’t know you want yet. But you will do when it is available. These ideas will be in our designs in the next 12 months. The gestation period is huge. You’ve got to think of the idea, then put it into care home designs, then you’ve got to go to planning and get planning, and then you have to build it. So, you won’t see some of these ideas come to fruition for a couple of years.
TCHE.Finally, social care reform. What do you expect the government to announce on ‘fixing’ social care in the coming months, if anything?
Goyal: Having been in the industry for 23 years, I have had my hopes dashed so many times that I don’t put them up anymore. The simple answer is they have let us down many times before, so I am not holding out too much hope they will do anything game changing. From my perspective - as chairman of Care England for the past six years and about to do another three years - we have just got to keep lobbying and keep going. The government has other priorities like the NHS and getting the economy back on track. If they can kick social care into the long grass they probably will. So, as care providers, we have got to do what we can to ensure we move into sectors and areas where we can make the business viable. As chairman of Care England, we will continue to lobby government. We will also raise the profile of care workers. They are the real heroes. We mustn’t forget the Clap for Carers movement and the great work that social care does for the public. Hence the formation of the Championing Social Care campaign. We must remind the government how key social care is to the wellbeing of so many people and the number of jobs it provides.
TCHE
www.thecarehomeenvironment.com • January 2021
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