The management team at Springhill Care Home in Accrington has thanked the community for its ‘tremendous support’ following a fire.
A small fire took place on Sunday which meant that part of the care home facility was left without power. Emergency services, social services, health professionals and members of the community all helped to make sure that the 109 residents at the home were safe and comfortable throughout.
This meant most were moved to the neighbouring Springhill Specialist Care Centre, an adjoining building. A small number of residents were either moved to Birch Green Care Home – also operated by Springhill Care Group – or stayed with family members. Two residents were taken in by other local care homes.
Following repair work Springhill Care Home is now up-and-running, with all residents settled back into the care home from the care centre.
Ken Nolan, chairman and founder of Springhill Care Group, said: “As you can imagine this scenario had the potential to be quite disruptive to our residents. In the end we did not need to evacuate the care centre, we were in most cases able to simply move people internally across to Springhill’s other wing – the specialist care centre – with a small number moved off-site at the recommendation of the emergency services on the night.
“Working in partnership all the emergency services including the fire service, local police and the North West Ambulance Service, healthcare professionals, local authority and the local clinical commissioning group we were quickly able to adapt and keep the disruption to a minimum.
Ken added: “There are no words that can do justice to the incredible responses from our staff – over 40 of whom turned up of their own accord to help provide additional assistance on the night of the incident, the majority of whom stayed with us all throughout the night. Likewise in regards to members of the local community whom were eager to offer support. The local Kingdom Hall, for instance, made their facilities available and kept on standby throughout the night in case we needed them. Others assisted us in the days following the incident, including for example, Weatherspoons Commercial Hotel staff who kindly supported us with a dishwashing facility until our electricity supplies were reinstalled on Monday.
“We’ve also had wonderful feedback from family members of our residents, and thanking us for the way the incident has been managed and the care our staff took, with so many of them coming in on their days off to help out.”
