Built for success! Witney care home scoops national award

Home news

Sep 16, 2020

A care home in Witney is celebrating after winning a highly-coveted national award. 

Care UK’s Millers Grange, on Curbridge Road, took home the award for ‘Best for Architecture, Interior Design or Communal Spaces’ at the Care Home Awards.

An annual celebration, the Care Home Awards recognise and reward excellence and innovation in UK care home management, operation and delivery, and this year took place virtually. 

The purpose-built care home was first opened in July 2019 and impressed the judges with its contemporary interior which meets the latest dementia-friendly design standards. While the home’s exterior has been designed to be in keeping with the local architecture, and uses local Cotswold stone. 

Inside Millers Grange everything is geared towards supporting residents to enjoy a wonderful quality of life. The home features a café, The Maltings, plus a hair salon and a cinema room.

There are four suites within the home; by subdividing the home into these smaller communities, residents with similar needs can be cared for together, and the environment can be designed around their needs. For residents living with dementia, the suites ensure that hustle and bustle is minimised, and everything from lighting to colour schemes have been designed to support people living with the condition to move around safely and independently. 

The dementia suite also features an all-weather garden room, complete with full length glazing, on a south-facing balcony, which provides the perfect location for residents to relax in the sunshine. The suite also has a ‘Tovertafel’ or magic table, which uses sensor and projection technology to enable residents to play fun, interactive games – ranging from sweeping leaves to popping bubbles or catching fish. 

At the end of each corridor in the dementia suite are destination points, including an office space, a laundry area, a safe workbench and a sewing area, which residents can access at any time to enjoy meaningful occupation. 

The award also highlighted the Maltings Café which provides ‘a very social space’ within the home and has a busy, happy atmosphere. Prior to the pandemic restrictions, a local baby massage group visited the café regularly, and it played host to the knit ‘n’ natter group, which included residents and local people. 

The café is also the location for the home’s wishing tree, where residents are encouraged to hang wishes of things they’d like to do or see. One gentleman’s wish to ski for the first time came true on his 92nd birthday, and another resident wanted to draw a pony from life, so the team organised for a friendly miniature pony to visit the home to fulfil his wish. Another resident wanted to meet penguins, and so a special visit saw these creatures visit the home. 

Alison Parry, home manager at Millers Grange, said: “It is fantastic to have won the award for ‘Best for Architecture, Interior Design or Communal Spaces’ in the Care Home Awards. 

“The home has been built to the very highest standards, and we are incredibly proud of the environment we have created since we first opened our doors last year. Everything at Millers Grange has been designed to ensure residents live happy and fulfilled lives. Our dementia suite is particularly special and it’s wonderful for our home to be recognised with this award.” 

Miller’s Grange has been designed to deliver the very best standards of care and to enable residents to live active and fulfilled lives. The home provides full-time residential dementia and respite care.

To find out more about Millers Grange, please call customer relations manager, Jim MacLeod, on 01993 764730 or email james.macleod@careuk.com

For more general information, please visit careuk.com/millers-grange