2023/24 Mid-Year Update

We are proud to be making meaningful progress on delivering our strategy. We continue to invest in both our people and our environments in support of enhancing the quality of life for those in our care and enabling them to lead their best life.

We strive to be the kindest care home provider, and along the way to be the first choice to those we care for, their families, colleagues and commissioners, serving at the heart of each of our communities.

As of 31st March 2024, we are pleased that:

We are investing over £39 million in colleague pay during 2024. This investment brings over 80% of our workforce to the ‘Real Living Wage’ or above, with all care colleagues able to earn the ‘Real Living Wage’ after two years of service. This builds on our £32.5 million investment in 2023. We are also pleased to have made a positive step forward on sick pay, having introduced company sick pay entitlement for all colleagues.

We welcomed 1,868 new care colleagues to HC-One, successfully recruiting to meet demand.

We are seeing a significant improvement in colleague turnover rate, which at 26.5% is ahead of sector average, thanks to our investments in pay, flexible working models and colleague recognition, as well as our innovative reward package. This turnover rate is a marked improvement on the levels that the sector saw of over 40% at the height of the post-COVID staffing challenge.

We became the first care home provider to achieve the National Preceptorship Interim Quality Mark Award for meeting the ‘Gold Standard’ criteria six months after our Nursing Preceptorship Programme launched, which builds on our broad-based investments in colleague training, and learning and development.

We were proud to bring Ideal Carehomes into the group in October 2023. The acquisition included 36 care homes in England, with a further care home expected to open in Cheltenham later this year. With a shared commitment to delivering high quality, kind care, we are excited to be working together and supporting all our residents to lead their best lives.

We are continuing to advance our £93 million refurbishment and upgrade programme for over 200 of our homes, with refurbishments completed at 116 homes. This remains the largest ever care home upgrade programme in the NHS and Local Authority funded care home sector. 

Our new build programme continues as we seek to introduce more state of the art, purpose-built homes. We opened our new care home, Bluebell View in Oswestry, Shropshire in May 2024 and held the topping out ceremony of HC-One’s new Milton Keynes care home (The Applewood) in February 2024, ahead of its opening in November this year. 

We are making meaningful progress on our digital transformation journey including the roll out of our new event reporting and quality assurance system across our portfolio. We have also successfully piloted a digital care planning system with rollout across the portfolio underway for completion over 18 months. At the heart of this journey for HC-One is enhancing how we care for and support residents, resulting in improved quality outcomes and experiences.

Occupancy has continued to increase, approaching 92%, and signifying a strong recovery post-pandemic.

HC-One is committed to providing the highest standards of care in every community we serve, which is demonstrated by the 9.5/10 average rating based on reviews submitted by our families on carehome.co.uk, making us one of the most highly rated care providers in the UK.

We are proud to be rolling out initiatives to support our responsible and sustainable approach towards residents, colleagues, the environment, and the wider communities we serve. This includes a partnership with Hey Girls, an award-winning social enterprise, to support colleagues with environmentally friendly period products, as well as introducing energy efficiency measures in our homes.

We are encouraged that we were ahead of plan at half year. As we continue into FY24 and beyond, we are intent on being the kindest care home provider, delivering high quality care across our communities, continuing to invest in our colleagues and environments, and supporting those in our care to lead their best lives.