The contractor for the Dumbarton Care Home, Morgan Sindall, handed over Crosslet House to West Dunbartonshire Health and Social Care Partnership in May 2017. This was shortly followed by the migration team managing the furnishing of Crosslet House in line with the design specification, and setup of all services and equipment.

The migration of residents from Langcraigs, Dalreoch and Willox Park was completed successfully during June 2017, with the new day service being fully operational in early July 2017. The migration process was the largest organisational change undertaken to date within the Health and Social Care Partnership, affecting 70 residents, up to 50 day service users a day, and more than 150 staff. Given the scale of the operation, and the need to upskill the workforce, the process was completed successfully, with residents now enjoying their new home, day service users finding new ways of spending their days, and staff benefitting from a modern workplace with greatly improved facilities.

There were many lessons learned from the completion of the Crosslet migration process, and we continue to be in the early days of settling in. There have been some difficulties with systems and snags affecting access, system challenges around tvs and wifi, false fire alarm activations, and the odd plumbing difficulty. Each difficulty has presented an opportunity for learning, with each point being taken on board and a commitment made by management to find solutions.

Snagging at Crosslet House is complete, but Lesley Woolfries, Capital Investment Team Manager continues to work closely with Phil MacDonald, Integrated Operations Manager – Residential and Day Services, to ensure that the building performs as it should and everyone using the building has the best experience possible. A significant volume of work has been undertaken to clear the old care home buildings which have now been secured and passed to the estates section for management until the council makes decisions about the future of each site.

The Clydebank project was awaiting the Queen’s Quay Master Plan approval before the planning application could be submitted for permission to build our new Clydebank Care Home. Clydebank Care Home has been granted planning permission, therefore the project board instructed the progression of the tender process, which led to the award of the contract to CCG (Scotland) Ltd, who are an industry leader for innovation in construction. Works have commenced on the care home site at Queens Quay, Clydebank and the expected date of completion is April 2020. Following handover from CCG (Scotland) Ltd, the HSCP will begin the process of equipping the building with furniture and equipment, ready for residents, day service users and staff to move into the building in June 2020. 

The management team are already working together in making preparatory arrangements for developing the Clydebank workforce, whilst working alongside residents and day service users to ensure the new building ultimately meets their needs.