COUNCILLORS have agreed to invest £2.8m into a Hawick care home, to correct ‘significant shortcomings’ in its condition.

Last month, the council’s care company SB Cares called in healthcare watchdogs after it was revealed that services at Deanfield Care Home at Roadhead had fallen below an acceptable standard.

Now, at a meeting of Scottish Borders Council on Thursday, chief executive Tracey Logan asked elected members to re-allocate £2.8m from funding which has previously been set aside for a new residential dementia care facility, to pay for improvement work at Deanfield. 

She told the chamber: “It has to be said that following concerns raised with myself, along with the council, I decided to undertake an inspection myself, and took with me a range of teams to try and understand what we could do to try and improve the fabric of Deanfield.

“It was disappointing to find Deanfield was pretty tired and in need of some real refurbishment.

“I didn’t find anything that caused me any concerns around health and safety or risk to individual clients, what I did find was a very old care home which really needed some care and attention and some investment.

“To make it clear, that investment would not total up to the sum of £2.8m if all we were going to do was refurbish an existing care home and make it look better and feel a bit better. That would not take £2.8m.”

Deanfield is currently a 35-bed traditional care home, first opened in 1987, which will now be remodelled into five domestic-style homes which will support a ‘care village’ approach. 

Common areas of the care home, such as the day centre area, will be redeveloped into community spaces that can be used for activities and group events, and an outdoor seating area will lead off from there.

Parts of the care home could be developed into small streetscapes, to remind people living with dementia how they lived and worked in their own homes.

Ms Logan went on to say that this model of care, which provides specialist dementia care in a homely setting, has been successfully pioneered in the Netherlands. 

She continued: “What members will be aware of is that we are constantly trying to see if we are providing the best possible care for people in the Borders.

“Part of that is to look at other models of care. What we’ve been doing in recent months is exploring a variety of different models, one of which we saw in the Netherlands.

“The model we’ve been looking at is largely associated with people living with advanced dementia and how they can be cared for in a community setting, very different to what we find in our own care homes.

“It’s largely based on providing a very homely kind of environment. You find that the whole village, if you like, is built around six houses, and if you go into one of these houses you feel like you are just in someone’s front room. 

“You are in a normal home, with a normal dining area, the staff don’t wear uniforms and it is very very warm and comforting and is exactly how you would want to find your own home.

“We’re looking to use Deanfield as a pilot test of this model and that is why we’re asking members to support a large investment, to change the whole nature of the care provided in Deanfield.”

Kelso councillor and deputy convener of the council Tom Weatherston said: “I welcome this report, this is a great news story for the entire council, irrespective of what side of the bench you sit on.

“For those of us lucky enough to visit Holland, we did learn, and since then that world class model is being copied all around the world.

“I would encourage everyone to go online and look at this village model, and look at what they do and how it works.

“This is the start of a journey that will take us several years into the future. We could be a lead on this, and other people will look at the Scottish Borders and say ‘that’s fantastic, they were the first to do this.’

“I welcome this, I’m really glad that Hawick is getting this, but it’s really a facility for the whole of the Borders.”

Hawick councillor Watson McAteer added: “There is a truism that out of the bad comes the good, and that’s the case here at Deanfield.

“It’s very unfortunate what happened, but what we’re seeing is the embryo of something that can affect the whole of the Borders.

“I totally agree that this innovative, different approach is exactly what is required and of course, there couldn’t be a better place to have a warm, inviting and open environment than in Hawick.

“Most importantly, and why I’m so in favour of this, is that this is about providing the highest possible level of care for the most vulnerable in our society.”