A new entrant to the UK’s neurological care field is planning continuing expansion after acquiring its first four sites.
Renovo Care was formed late last year through the purchases of two specialist neuro care centres – Glenside Hospital, near Salisbury, and Hollanden Park Hospital in Hildenborough, Kent – alongside two residential services, Victoria House in Farnborough and Swanborough House in Brighton.
Now, with the appointment of chief executive Peter Kinsey, the group is looking at further additions to its specialist portfolio, as well as investing in its current sites and offering.
Glenside Hospital, now known as South Newton Hospital, has recently re-opened two of its wards following a £1million investment, with another three set to follow pending CQC approval.
Innovations including robotics and use of technology are also being looked at as part of Renovo’s ambitious strategy, which is backed by investment from Blantyre Capital.
“I really want to push boundaries and look at what we can achieve with and for people,” says Mr Kinsey.
“I want us to be at the forefront of good practice and to take advantage of the opportunities that the sector is just starting to look at.”
With the creation of Renovo, through the combination of four venues owned by an independent operator, a priority now for Mr Kinsey is to continue the process of integration.
“Our ambition as a group is to continue to grow, but in a sensible and measured way, making sure the cultures integrate,” says Mr Kinsey, who has over 30 years’ experience in health and social care.
“We’re certainly keen to look at opportunities, but we need to balance what we want to be with where we are now – we need to maintain and build the quality as we grow and make sure that doesn’t dip.
“In a growing business with new acquisitions being made, a lot of hard work is involved in making sure integration happens so everyone is in the same place with the same values and ethos.”
Mr Kinsey is also committed to developing the ethos of the newly-created group, having overseen major change in his previous role as chief executive of learning disabilities provider CMG, which merged with Regard Partnership to form Achieve Together.
He plans to involve service users, families, staff and commissioners in reviewing and developing Renovo’s values.
“All organisations have values, although it can be rare they’re known on the frontline. I want those to be known and shared by everyone in the team,” he says.
“We all have to work very hard to embed those values and keep them simple, but so people believe them and want to be part of them.
“Post lockdown, probably in the summer, I want to bring everyone together in a really engaging way which brings everyone on board, and is done in a really inclusive way – in my previous role, we did the very basic but visually effective tactic of getting people to put a token in a plastic container to show their opinions and preferences.
“Or another was where we created life-sized paper people and asked teams to create an ‘ideal’, which brought in what they considered the best parts of their support workers and therapists, and that was so effective in showing in a simple way what mattered to them.
“They key to tackling things like values and ethos is to make it fun. It doesn’t have to be dull or hard work – that’s the key to getting everyone on board with you, together. At the end of it, we’ll have great values that we’ve all helped to put together.”
As a new group, but building on the experience and expertise of decades of neurological care, Mr Kinsey highlights the specialism of the provider.
“We’re creating a very specialist group which focuses on long-term care and neurorehabilitation for ABI patients and those with neurological conditions – there are quite a few providers who do ABI and other things, but for us, that’s the focus,” says Mr Kinsey.
“This is very different to learning disabilities and mental health, I think there’s often an assumption if you do one you do all three, but we want to do this one area really well.
“That focus on quality is at the forefront of everything we do and will continue to be as we grow and move forward.”
