First residents move in to brand new care home

The Moat House, Essex has welcomed its first residents. The 60 bed care home on the outskirts of Great Easton, near Great Dunmow, has been built to replace a 150 year old building of the same name on the 10 acre site.

The 20 current residents have now moved into the new purpose built home, which represents a multi-million pound investment by national operator Retirement Villages Ltd.

A further 40 residents are expected to move in over the coming months.

Already the new Moat House has brought a welcome boost to the local economy with the creation of around 15 new jobs with a further 25 to follow.

The new home has 60 en suite bedrooms and a range of communal facilities for use by residents, staff and guests. It will offer residential, nursing and dementia care under one roof.

Manager Deborah Stevenson has spent weeks preparing for the move to ensure the minimum disruption to residents.

“The new building is absolutely beautiful and we’ve enjoying spending time with residents and their families helping them choose their new bedrooms and showing them the new facilities,” said Deborah. “We’ve had a lot of help with moving residents’ personal belongings over so they’re surrounded by familiar things straight away.”

The Moat House received its Care Quality Commission registration in September.

Paul Walsh is the Managing Director of Care and Operations for Retirement Villages Ltd. He said: “The opening of the new building represents an almost three fold increase in the number of bedrooms at the Moat House. We believe it will provide a significant boost for the area certainly in terms of care provision and the facilities we are able to offer, and also to the local economy through employment opportunities and use of local service industries.

“The Moat House is an established part of the community and we hope the enhanced offering will prove beneficial to that community.”