Community Integrated Care Announces Plans For £4.8 Million Specialist Dementia Service

National social care charity Community Integrated Care is proud to announce proposals to develop a new £4.8 million specialist dementia care service in Blackburn, which is set to open for late summer 2015.

The service, which will be named EachStep Blackburn, will apply the charity’s unique EachStep model of integrated dementia care, which aims to support people from diagnosis until the end of their lives. It will provide domiciliary care in the Blackburn community, as well as respite, residential, nursing and palliative care for 64 people within the new service.

The charity formally announced these proposals last week, when it met local people and community groups from Blackburn, at an open consultation event.

The proposed development will be overseen by LNT Construction, a company that specialises in the design and build of elderly care homes, who have submitted a planning application for the project. Their proposal aims to support local regeneration plans for the Ewood area of Blackburn, where the service will be built.

As well as providing an extensive range of specialist facilities for the people it will support, the service will also offer several amenities for the local community to enjoy – including a café, landscaped gardens and meeting rooms.

Community Integrated Care and LNT Group have worked closely with Blackburn with Darwen Council in developing proposals for the service. The development comes as part of a strategic aim by Blackburn with Darwen Council to modernise and continue to improve local care services for older people. The service will support the strategic goals of the local authority to keep people at home for longer and avoid unnecessary admissions into hospital.

It is anticipated that this new care service will create over 100 permanent jobs in a range of care, management and administrative roles.

Catherine Murray-Howard, Deputy Chief Executive of Community Integrated Care, says: “Our charity is committed to enhancing the lives of people with care needs and making a positive to contribution to local communities, and these aims are at the core of these proposals.”

She continues: “The proposed EachStep service will offer the very highest standards of dementia support, delivered by highly trained, caring staff in exceptional facilities. In doing so, we will give people in Blackburn, and their loved ones, the comfort and stability that they need. But moreover, we intend for this service to benefit the Blackburn community at-large, enhancing the local environment and bringing many new opportunities for local people.”

Andrew Long, Group Development Director of LNT Group says, “LNT Group, Community Integrated Care and Blackburn with Darwen Council all share a vision for the development of high quality purpose built care homes in the Borough. We hope that this is the first of several projects.”

Councillor Mohammed Khan, Executive Member for Health and Adult Social Care at Blackburn with Darwen Council, says: “Blackburn Council is delighted that Community Integrated Care, as a not-for-profit organisation, is keen to work in partnership with us to develop a new innovative model of care for our older people. This is an exciting step for Blackburn-with-Darwen and we will watch closely as the project progresses.”