Vida Healthcare is celebrating a decade of providing care to people living with dementia.

The specialist care provider opened the doors to its first care home, Vida Hall, in 2013 with the goal of delivering outstanding dementia care to people across the UK.

James Rycroft, managing director at Vida Healthcare, commented: “My father and I established Vida to transform the care available to people living with dementia. It was clear at the time that many traditional residential care homes simply didn’t have the resources or expertise to fully support their residents who were living with dementia.

“We set about challenging perceptions and practices in dementia care, with an emphasis on reducing the use of medications and instead providing bespoke environments and alternative therapies. I’m extremely proud of how far Vida has come since we opened the doors to our first care home back in 2013. This anniversary is a significant milestone and over the years I’ve been privileged to work with an incredible team of people, and to provide outstanding care for our residents and their families. Our staff are the lifeblood of our company, and I’m grateful to them for their continued dedication and passion.

“While we’ve created a scalable model which enables us to develop new homes, over the next five years we’ll focus on our existing homes to ensure we maintain our levels of care and can offer a personalised service to our residents at all times.”

The specialist care provider currently boasts 550 staff, 20 houses across its three care homes, and provides care for over 230 residents. 

In 2022, Vida announced a permanent wage increase of 30% for frontline care staff, including nurses, care assistants and bank staff, to help retain and attract talent. This is 30% higher than the sector average and has led to Vida recruiting 330 new staff members, and contributed to the low staff turnover rate of 6%. This is below the national sector average of 29%.

Two of Vida Healthcare’s three care homes, Vida Hall and Vida Grange, are rated Outstanding with its third, Vida Court, still be inspected.

As part of its anniversary celebrations, Vida Healthcare held a tea party on 31 March and celebrated staff who have been with the company since its launch.