£70k training centre for nursing home chain

Hillcroft Nursing Homes has opened a new centre with two training rooms at its care home for the elderly in Slyne.

One room will be used to train new starters while the other will enable existing staff to receive training updates.

Hillcroft has six care homes in the district – at Lancaster, Morecambe, Brookhouse, Slyne, Carnforth and Galgate – and employs 350 staff.

Louise Mattinson, admin/quality manager at Hillcroft, said the centre would allow high quality training in a purpose-built environment.

The building was also used recently by St John’s Hospice for an end-of-life care training programme.

The new training centre comes 17 months after four Hillcroft employees were found guilty of abusing elderly residents.

“I wouldn’t say the academy is a direct result of that but it certainly focussed our minds a bit more,” said Louise Mattinson. “We’re always looking at ways to improve things and training was one of the big areas to come out of that.”

The training academy was opened on June 12 by Caroline Jackson, deputy mayor of Lancaster.