Is there a future for luxury care homes?

The not-for-profit group Anchor, best known for its sheltered housing, is opening a luxury care home. The charity believes it marks the start of a new model of care for the baby boomer generation. But with doubts remaining about the future prospects for sector will the approach take off?

Set in five acres of Surrey greenbelt, West Hall is not the average care home.

The £30m development has 117 en-suite rooms, a hair salon, a library, landscaped gardens and a private dining room for special occasions.

The accommodation is housed in three separate purpose-built buildings, known as "clusters", while many of the communal facilities are situated in a listed manor house.

The rooms are all equipped with sensors which alert staff if someone has fallen or stopped moving and each area in the clusters is coloured differently to help those with advanced dementia recognise their living areas.

But what also marks the centre out is the level of training everyone has. There is a 12-week induction that covers dementia care which all staff, from the care professionals to the handyman, complete.

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