Parklands celebrate 30 years of caring excellence
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THREE decades of top quality care for the elderly were celebrated on Saturday when Parklands Care Homes marked their milestone anniversary.
A community day of festivities at Parklands in Buckie featuring live music, food stalls and fun activities for the kids shone the spotlight on what has been a remarkable 30 years for the firm.
Initially started by current managing director Ron Taylor and a group of local GPs back in 1993, the firm has grown over the years into a group spanning Moray and the Highlands with outline planning consent being sought for homes in Aberdeenshire. Parklands employs around 800 people caring for over 400 elderly people. Prior to founding Parklands, Mr Taylor was the chief executive of Moray Enterprise Trust before moving to take on a similar role with Aberdeen Enterprise Trust. He was also a founding director of Moray Chamber of Commerce and is a past president of the organisation.
Mr Taylor said the Parklands story over the last 30 years has been "incredible".
He said: "I think if you're passionate about what you do and you enjoy what you do it doesn't become work.
"You get up in the morning and just thrive on it."
His grandfather, for whom he was a primary carer, was to provide the inspiration that was to propel Mr Taylor into the care sector.
"When I left university in 1983 my grandfather became quite ill – my grandfather was a very important part of my life as my father died when I was very young so he was the father figure I had – so I decided that I would look after him for the nine months until he passed.
"I did things as a 21-year-old I thought I'd never have to do.
"I always said to myself that if I ever got into the care sector I'd want to make sure that the care I gave to my grandfather was the care that each and every one of our residents gets.
"My grandmother was also a major influence in me going into the care sector.
"We are caring for people who are at their most vulnerable, I often say to the staff that we're looking after people who're blessed with old age."
Mr Taylor went on to pay tribute to staff past and present at the firm, describing them as the secret of Parklands' success.
He said: "I often think that while I started the company and created the platform, the fantastic people we have working for us makes me feel quite humble.
"We started in Buckie and I personally have had so much support from Buckie and Moray, which is effectively our heartland. Many of our employees have been with us for 15 years plus and it's amazing what they've done. Our staff are the secret of our success.
"We build homes in rural economies like Buckie, like Keith, like Aberlour and we take our workforce from those economies. It's like an extended family, these communities are where we draw most of our residents from and their relatives come and work for us as well."
He went on to stress that right from the outset Parklands has been a values-driven company, the central planks of all they do fired by professionalism, respect and trust, working together and a good place to work. They were, Mr Taylor said, "as relevant today as they were in 1993".
He added: "It's an absolute privilege and honour to look after people who are most vulnerable and blessed with old.
"That's what we do and do very well."
A turning point for the group, Mr Taylor highlighted, was when Parklands took over three council-run care homes – Netherha in Buckie, Glenisla in Keith and Speyside in Aberlour – in 2000. The Highlands has become and continues to be a major growth area for the care home group.
Medium to long term investments being undertaken by Parklands include a 58-bed care home in Inverness – also comprising a later living village with 11 two-bedroom bungalows and affordable housing for rent to staff – and new developments in Elgin, Turriff and Alford. Earlier this year the firm took over the running of Craigard homes in Cullen and Keith after the company went into administration.
Mr Taylor went on to say one of the major challenges Parklands has faced and continues to face is social care being treated as a Cinderalla sector.
"We look after people with very complex care needs, it's basically hospital care on the cheap.
"If social care was to go down then the NHS would go down with it, I have no doubt. We have more beds in Moray than there are in all of the [region's] community hospitals put together so it's very important in terms of bed blocking. There's are many people who want to go home from hospital but can't at the moment, we're a stepping stone for them.
"Social care is in crisis – to use a medical term, the entire sector is in intensive care. There's just over one care home closing every week at the moment and it's just due to spiralling costs, interest rates, utility costs, recruitment is a huge issue, it's just one thing after another.
"The sector doesn't get the position we really should have.
"Covid and the cost of living crisis have had a huge impact. With Covid, we were very fortunate we missed the first outbreak completely [in terms of cases] and in the second outbreak the residents had been immunised and I think we had four or five cases of Covid.
"Again, I have to pay tribute to the staff; many of them slept here on the floor on mattresses at night rather than go home. They were unbelievable, I can't thank them enough.
"Despite the spiralling costs, interest rates and labour concerns we're very upbeat about the future, I think this is just a phase we're going through. Hopefully the Scottish Government will listen to our concerns and we can move forward and get a settlement from them that will reflect what we do."
He added that Parklands had made the "very difficult" decision to shut the Mo Dhachaidh care home in Ullapool due to a wave of rising costs, with the 15 or so residents being found places at surrounding homes.
Three years on from opening its doors, Parklands became one of the first care homes in Scotland to achieve Investor in people status. In 2013 the firm was crowned Multiple Care Home Owner of the Year in the Scottish Care Awards, the same year seeing it win the Moray Business Awards at the Moray Chamber of Commerce Annual Business Awards.
The Outstanding Performing Business (25 plus employees) at the Highland Business Awards was the next trophy in 2015 with Parklands named UK Best Small Care Home Operator (under 25 homes) five years later.
All of Moray’s five care homes (Parklands/Burnbank, Netherha, Glenisla, Speyside) are rated 5 (very good) by the Care Inspectorate for the way they support residents’ well-being and for the quality of their leadership, while Parklands and Burnbank have received the highest possible score (6, excellent) for ensuring that residents get the most out of life.
