Kings Lodge Case Study
Kings Lodge was purchased in 2005 as a 38 bed nursing home with planning permission for an additional stand alone 40 bed extension. At the time of purchase Kings Lodge had only had limited capital spent on it for many years resulting in poor standards and low staff morale. Despite this and the physical restraints of the original Edwardian property, Affinity were determined that Kings Lodge would become a market leader in care provision and instigated a full programme of refurbishment for the entire building.
The refurbishment, which took over two years to complete, included redesigning windows to suit wheelchair users, the conversion of two bedrooms into a dedicated gym area, providing a new IT room complete with Wifi and webcams, installing a purpose built kitchen area and renovation of staff accommodation. In addition, with the help of the Probation Service, the overgrown garden was cleared and adapted for wheelchair users.
As well as undertaking the refurbishment and purchase of additional staff accommodation, Affinity increased staffing ratios, invested more in staff remuneration and provided specialised training for the staff. Affinity repositioned Kings Lodge from a simple nursing home to a centre of excellence for treatment of physically disabled clients and those with Acquired Brain Injuries. The home enjoys a three star “excellent” rating from CQC and has the coveted preferred provider status of the Multiple Sclerosis Society.
During this time, despite being in an extremely sensitive planning area (green belt), the planning was completely reworked to provide a very highly specified, top end extension that will provide the standard of accommodation and services that physically disabled residents require and expect.
The new extension costs £2.5m creates an additional 24 beds, adding £750,000 to EBIT and increasing capital value by £5m.