High-Quality Amenities And Services For Senior Residents

We catch up with Simon Dickinson, sales and brand director at Signature Senior Lifestyle, which provides luxury senior living in purpose-built communities across London and the Home Counties.

Simon, can you tell us a bit about your day-to-day role?

I am tasked with delivering our routes to market and oversee all external outputs – from the hoarding design at our construction sites to our sales strategy, marketing and communications offer, with a view to creating awareness and understanding of our product.

In recent months, my role has shifted towards reassurance, highlighting that resident safety and wellbeing is our first priority and at the heart of everything we do.

It's fair to say that some care homes are experiencing tough times during the current pandemic. What have you been doing to ensure that yours are COVID-secure?

We were quick to independently procure personal protective equipment (PPE) at scale and have been conducting regular widespread whole home testing. We have brought in specialist training, bespoke risk assessments and extensive new health and safety measures including temperature testing for all visitors, rigorous sanitisation and partially restricted access. The health of our residents, carers and families remains paramount – so we continue to monitor the situation closely and will adapt as required.

Many retired people now look forward to their final home as being somewhere to socialise, learn new skills and enjoy their time to the full. How does Signature help to create this lifestyle for them?

We are one of few providers that offer expansive apartments – often twice the size of the industry average - with separate bedrooms, not just studios, which gives residents the space to enjoy their time in comfort.

All homes have a dedicated activities manager, with an active social programme including themed events, which we have adapted to suit social distancing measures in our spacious communal areas.

Food and beverage is a big part of our offer – mealtime brings joy to our residents, so we work with MasterChef winner Jane Devonshire on our menu to ensure we are providing delicious and nutritionally balanced meals. We recently also undertook a pioneering Facebook Live initiative with her, where residents and carers from homes competed to make the best Knickerbocker Glory dessert, with over 6,500 video views on Facebook and 45,000 timelines reached.

Your homes offer some interesting features, including industry-leading clean air filtration and ventilation. What difference does this make to the look and feel of them?

Beyond removing the malodour that is often historically associated with care homes, filtered clean air has a wealth of benefits for our residents. It can reduce allergies and symptoms of respiratory conditions and is proven to improve overall wellness, all of which are particularly important for elderly residents in care.

Our ventilation systems also consider the different temperature requirements required for optimum comfort. Ultimately we want to ensure the safest, healthiest and most comfortable environment possible for our residents, carers and visitors.

What do customers tend to look for in terms of location, amenities and facilities?

Historically our residents have tended to come from the immediate surrounding areas in London and the Home Counties, however this is shifting slightly and we see some people coming from as far as 10-15 miles away now. It all depends on their family’s location and how close they prefer their loved ones to be.

We pride ourselves on our diverse luxury amenity offering, which includes cinemas, restaurants, cafés, hair salons, spas and landscaped gardens, ensuring a balanced and enjoyable lifestyle.

How does Signature help deliver peace of mind to clients and their families when they're deciding whether to move to one of your properties?

Our support is tailored to the individual’s needs and we are one of only a few providers that has an online family gateway, allowing 24-hour monitoring of our care programmes. We also have generous staff-to-customer ratios, as well as features like ambient monitoring technology that can be used in each apartment to track the safety of residents.

This is incredibly intelligent and sophisticated and can be programmed to send out alerts. An example of its use is to inform particular residents that they’re due to take their medication if self-administered or alerting staff if a resident falls over.

What do you predict will be the next big interior trends for senior living in care homes?

In light of the pandemic, I think interior trends will be focused on providing increased functionality and safety. We are looking at built in temperature checking scanners at reception, ever improving air quality filtration with HEPA filters and automatic doors to reduce physical touchpoints. We have also just installed Hotel TV at our Wandsworth home, allowing increased service at the touch of a button including food orders.

Find out more at www.signature-care-homes.co.uk.