Renaissance Care celebrates 20 years
Leading Scottish care home entrepreneur Robert Kilgour has set out ambitious expansion plans as he looks to double the size of his Renaissance Care Group, stating that the sector is “in need of a new type of consolidation”.
As Renaissance Care celebrates its 20-year anniversary this year, its Executive Chairman has announced a five-year plan that will take the company from its current annual turnover of £46m to over £100m and increase the number of care homes it operates across Scotland from 17 to over 30 by 2029.
Building on its 20-year success of operating care homes for elderly residents, the group has also announced the imminent acquisition of its 18th care home, together with plans to open two specialist care units for patients with serious head injuries and Huntington’s Disease.
The ambitious expansion plans will use Renaissance Care’s ‘best in class’ operations to support care homes across Scotland, providing more personalised care for elderly care home residents while making full use of new technologies.
Dr Kilgour, who also founded Four Seasons Health Care 36 years ago, said: “For two decades, we have built up an impressive track record of improving the quality standards of the homes we bring into our portfolio. The skills and experience of our amazing and hard-working staff have underpinned this successful strategy and we are hugely excited about this next, major expansion phase.
Flexibility around the needs of our staff has allowed for an improved working environment that properly supports our staff and we remain incredibility passionate about accommodating the individual needs of our employees
Robert Kilgour, Chairman
“When we started out, the UK’s ten largest care home operators ran 27% of all care home beds but that figure has now reduced to around 18% as several large, UK-wide operators such as Southern Cross (854 care homes) have gone into administration and been broken up. I firmly believe that the positive future for elderly care in the UK lies in strong but smaller regional care home operators.
“Care homes continue to struggle in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic and the ongoing cost-of-living and energy crisis. However, acquisition strategies like ours can provide an attractive and meaningful lifeline for many smaller operators as strong regional groups of between 30 to 60 care homes can achieve better economies of scale while still maintaining a personal care approach for both residents and staff which larger operators simply can’t deliver.
“I firmly believe the sector is ready for a new type of regional consolidation and our expansion plans will therefore focus on acquiring homes to join the Renaissance Care family, providing more quality, individual care to hundreds more residents across Scotland.”
Starting with just two care homes with 90 employees and a turnover of £2million in 2004, Renaissance Care now employs 1,300 people caring for 800 residents across its 17 care homes throughout Scotland, with an annual turnover of £46m.
Care homes are a ‘people business’ and the exceptional quality of the staff at Renaissance Care has been key to its success. Dr Kilgour said that they are now reaping the benefits of the introduction of a flexible working model in 2022, with staff retention rates far above industry norms, a low staff vacancy rate and very limited use of agency staff.
He continued: “When I suggested introducing a flexible working model, people within the industry told me it would never work. However, as we celebrate 20 years of Renaissance Care, it is clear that treating our staff with the same personalised care that we provide for our residents has resulted in a sector-leading staff retention rates that allow our teams to develop far better relationships with our residents.
“Flexibility around the needs of our staff has allowed for an improved working environment that properly supports our staff and we remain incredibility passionate about accommodating the individual needs of our employees.”
As Executive Chairman of Renaissance Care, Robert Kilgour has long been focused on building up both a strong senior management team and an experienced Board of Executive and Non-Executive Directors who are capable of driving and delivering his planned growth of the business.
Dr Kilgour said: “My father always told me that to achieve business success you should never be afraid to surround yourself with people who are cleverer than you, and that is exactly what I have done and will continue to do as we build on the existing platform of Renaissance Care. It is also very true that you cannot successfully scale a business if you are not prepared to delegate important decision-making to those around you.”
“Despite the many care sector challenges that we are facing, I remain very positive about the future - a glass half full, not half empty. The next five years looks to be an incredibly exciting period for Renaissance Care as we use the platform that we have developed over the last 20 years to achieve great things both within and for the care industry in Scotland.”
Kilgour continues to be a consistent industry voice, actively calling for and working hard for more and better support for the care home sector across the UK and he has also recently established The Social Care Foundation to help in this very important, very worthwhile but extremely challenging task.
