DDC Dolphin | Sanctuary Care

Enriching Lives As A Not-For-Profit

Sanctuary Care manages around 100 care homes in England and Scotland. In 2022, Sanctuary Care was named a Top 20 Large Care Home Group by leading review site Carehome.co.uk (which gave it a 9.6/10 rating).

The 6,100+ employees at Sanctuary Care look after more than 4,200 residents, providing them with residential, nursing and dementia care, palliative and respite care. They also take care of people with learning disabilities, mental health, brain injury and neurodegenerative conditions.

“Everything we do and how we choose to reinvest is all underpinned by our mission of enriching lives – ensuring our residents, their families and our teams continually have a sense of security, belonging, continuity, purpose, achievement and significance.”

Sanctuary Care is part of the not-for-profit Sanctuary Group, a registered exempt charity: “Any surplus income we get from the group, we continually reinvest to improve our existing housing and all the services we provide, as well as investing in the communities in which we operate.”

The Challenge

Complete Refurbishment Of 30 Sluice Rooms In 11 Care Homes

Sanctuary needed to revamp sluice rooms at 11 of its care homes in London, Essex, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire.

What started out for Sanctuary as a routine replacement of bedpan washers soon became a much larger undertaking as the group realised that the sluice rooms would need remedial work to the plumbing, electricity supply, flooring and walls to continue maintaining the high standard of infection control at its homes.

However, carrying out that remedial work at the various locations would be far from simple. Sanctuary had already employed electricians, plumbers, carpenters and flooring fitters to start on the work – but was concerned at the lack of consistency with regard to quality, and how much time was required to co-ordinate the various tradespeople.

DDC Dolphin Turnkey Solution

Full Refurbishment Of The Sluice Rooms, New Bedpan Washer Disinfector, Complete Project Management DDC has a long and happy relationship with Sanctuary Care stretching back many years. Over that time, we have supplied them with a wide range of infection control solutions including medical pulp macerators, bedpan washer disinfectors, stainless steel furniture, along with servicing and maintenance.

It was on a routine customer care call – to check how the installation of a Panamatic Maxi bedpan washer was progressing – that Sanctuary revealed how hard it was to source the right tradespeople for the pre-installation remedial work needed for the sluice rooms.

What started as a simple enquiry about the progress of work at one care home (Riverlee in South East London) soon became a much larger conversation as Sanctuary swiftly realised how DDC could solve all its machine procurement, sluice room refurbishment and project management requirements in one fell swoop.

DDC provided Sanctuary with a complete turnkey solution for each sluice room. This included:

• Supplying and installing sluice machines including:
  • Panamatic Maxi – our highest-capacity bedpan washer disinfector. It has an extra-large wash chamber to cope with high dependency or nursing-level care settings.
  • Panamatic Midi – medium-capacity bedpan washer disinfectors with a wide-opening lid for ease of loading.
  • Pulpmatic Uno – medical pulp macerators designed specifically for care homes and smaller hospital wards.
• Replacing existing wooden sluice room furniture with Hygenex medical-grade stainless steel sink units and other furnishings.
• Replacing tiled floors with superior anti-slip flooring that also eliminates the need for grouting (which is known to be a potential risk area for the spread of bacteria).
• Fitting impermeable, impact-resistant Altro Whiterock™ PVCu sheeting to the walls – hygienic, easy to clean and maintain, grout-free for superior infection control.
• Carrying out all the necessary plumbing work. Carrying out all the electrical work, installing new energy-efficient LED lighting.
• Decoration of the rooms.
• Project managing all the work for maximum efficiency – with no disruption to care home residents.
  
  

Outcome

Superior Infection Control, Greater Efficiencies, More Time For Hands-On Care Sanctuary’s 30 sluice rooms are now even more advanced and infection-safe than they were before – and operating even more efficiently.

Staff can now spend less time washing and disinfecting bedpans – thanks to the newly installed sluice machines. Cleaning and sterilising surfaces in the sluice room is now quicker and easier too because of the Hygenex stainless steel furniture, the Altro Whiterock™ walls and the grout-free flooring. This enables staff to spend more time providing hands-on care to the residents.

The superior infection control and higher levels of staff care also make it easier for Sanctuary to gain and maintain higher CQC ratings.

Furthermore, Sanctuary no longer has to worry about project managing large numbers of tradespeople at the homes. It has the reassurance of one single-source supplier being accountable for the entire process from start to finish.

With a dedicated project manager at DDC – there is much less administration involved. So, as a not-for-profit, Sanctuary can reinvest the money it saves back into its care homes:

• directly benefiting residents with improved technology such as heated pods for safe visiting, new nurse call systems, on-going lift improvements, refurbishments, reception and garden improvements, adding beautiful orangeries
• further improving working conditions for staff – who already give Sanctuary a 94% employee recommendation.

Sanctuary was so impressed with DDC turnkey solution that it has asked us to refurbish and re-equip 19 sluice rooms at a further 10 care homes in London, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hampshire and Oxfordshire.